Retiering the Classes: Incarnate, Soulborn, Totemist [Archive]

heavyfuel

2018-09-10, 01:22 PM

Incarnum classes. With exception of the Soulborn, this messy book is generally considered pretty balanced/mid tier. At the heart of all of these classes is the use of Soulmelds, Essentia, and Chakras, and their emphasis being able to somewhat change their specialty on a daily basis. I'll be honest that I've seen very little of these classes in play so I'll abstain from making too many comments on them.

Incarnate (MoI, 20): The incarnum skill monkey. Can use soulmelds to fill the skill needs of the party, from trapfinding, to scouting, to social skills. It's apparently pretty good at BfC, which is always a plus.

Soulborn (MoI, 25): The incarnum paladin is as impressive as the paladin. That's to say, not very. Can hit things as well as any Full BAB class can. The d10 HD on a Con focused class that's usually seen in heavy armor means it can tank pretty well, even if it's lacking pretty much everywhere else.

Totemist (MoI, 29): The incarnum... barbarian? I guess? It's similar to the barbarian in the sense that they are both damage dealers with a wild fluff. It gets some skill bonuses, but nothing as major as the Incarnate.

What are the tiers?

The simple answer here is that tier one is the best, the home of things on the approximate problem solving scale of wizards, and tier six is the worst, land of commoners. And problem solving capacity is what's being measured here. Considering the massive range of challenges a character is liable to be presented with across the levels, how much and how often does that character's class contribute to the defeat of those challenges? This value should be considered as a rough averaging across all levels, the center of the level range somewhat more than really low and really high level characters, and across all optimization levels (considering DM restrictiveness as a plausible downward acting factor on how optimized a character is), prioritizing moderate optimization somewhat more than low or high.

A big issue with the original tier system is that, if anything, it was too specific, generating inflexible definitions for allowance into a tier which did not cover the broad spectrum of ways a class can operate. When an increase in versatility would seem to represent a decrease in tier, because tier two is supposed to be low versatility, it's obvious that we've become mired in something that'd be pointless to anyone trying to glean information from the tier system. Thus, I will be uncharacteristically word light here. The original tier system's tier descriptions (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0) are still good guidelines here, but they shouldn't be assumed to be the end all and be all for how classes get ranked.

Consistent throughout these tiers is the notion of problems and the solving thereof. For the purposes of this tier system, the problem space can be said to be inclusive of combat, social interaction, and exploration, with the heaviest emphasis placed on combat. A problem could theoretically fall outside of that space, but things inside that space are definitely problems. Another way to view the idea of problem solving is through the lens of the niche ranking system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System). A niche filled tends to imply the capacity to solve a type of problem, whether it's a status condition in the case of healing, or an enemy that just has too many hit points in the case of melee combat. It's not a perfect measure, both because some niches have a lot of overlap in the kinds of problems they can solve and because, again, the niches aren't necessarily all inclusive, but they can act as a good tool for class evaluation.

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems. This is the realm of clerics, druids, and wizards, classes that open up with strong combat spells backed up by utility, and then get massively stronger from there. If you're not keeping up with that core trio of tier one casters, then you probably don't belong here.

Tier two: We're just a step below tier one here, in the land of classes around the sorcerer level of power. Generally speaking, this means relaxing one of the two tier one assumptions, either getting us to very good at solving nearly all problems, or incredibly good at solving most problems. But, as will continue to be the case as these tiers go on, there aren't necessarily these two simple categories for this tier. You gotta lose something compared to the tier one casters, but what you lose doesn't have to be in some really specific proportions.

Tier three: Again, we gotta sacrifice something compared to tier two, here taking us to around the level of a swordsage. The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

Tier four: Here we're in ranger/barbarian territory (though the ranger should be considered largely absent of ACF's and stuff to hit this tier, as will be talked about later). Starting from that standard tier three position, the usual sweet spots here are very good at solving a few problems, or alright at solving many problems.

Tier five: We're heading close to the dregs here. Tier five is the tier of monks, classes that are as bad as you can be without being an aristocrat or a commoner. Classes here are sometimes very good at solving nearly no problems, or alright at solving a few, or some other function thereof. It's weak, is the point.

Tier six: And here we have commoner tier. Or, the bottom is commoner. The top is approximately aristocrat. You don't necessarily have nothing in this tier, but you have close enough to it.

The Threads

URL="http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?568771-Retiering-the-Classes-A-new-home"]Tier System Home Base[/URL]

The Expanded Psionics: Psion, Psychic Warrior, Soulknife, Wilder (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569280-The-Expanded-Psionics-Psion-Psychic-Warrior-Soulknife-Wilder&p=23373106)

The Auraists (Re-Done): Divine Mind, Dragon Shaman, Marshal (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569997-Retiering-the-Classes-Divine-Mind-Dragon-Shaman-and-Marshal-(re-done)&p=23392694#post23392694)

Completing the Psionics: Ardent, Erudite, Lurk, Psychic Rogue (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?570457-Retiering-the-Classes-Ardent-Erudite-Lurk-Psychic-Rogue)

The Rankings

Incarnate: 3

Soulborn: 5

Totemist: 3

Nifft

2018-09-10, 01:28 PM

The Rankings

Incarnate: 3

Soulborn: 3

Totemist: 5

I think you mixed up Soulborn and Totemist.

heavyfuel

2018-09-10, 01:32 PM

I think you mixed up Soulborn and Totemist.

These Rankings are simply a placeholder from what seems to be the forum's opinion. The whole purpose of these threads is to correct these placeholders :smallsmile:

AmberVael

2018-09-10, 01:44 PM

These Rankings are simply a placeholder from what seems to be the forum's opinion. The whole purpose of these threads is to correct these placeholders :smallsmile:

... I think you mixed up totemist and soulborn. I've never seen someone rate soulborn as better and totemist as worst. The consensus I've seen has been the opposite. Soulborn is a fighter with inadequate incarnum instead of feats, while totemist is an engine of natural attacks that has useful abilities like flight and teleportation.

heavyfuel

2018-09-10, 01:45 PM

Ok... I see what I did now. You and Nifft are correct. Way to start my first thread.

Cosi

2018-09-10, 01:53 PM

The Soulborn sucks a lot. It's a Paladin, except Soulmelds are worse than spells and it doesn't get the wealth of splat material that the Paladin does. The class's one saving grace is that you can play as alignments that aren't Lawful Good, but the Paladins of Freedom, Tyranny, and Slaughter are right there in Unearthed Arcana.

People keep telling me the Incarnate is good, but I don't believe them. All it really does is get very large skill bonuses. But very large skill bonuses aren't all that useful, and its options in combat are pretty anemic, particularly at high levels. Apparently you're supposed to rely on dissolving spittle, but it's not really all that impressive. At low levels it's fine because you can beat the essentia curve and do four or five dice of acid damage at low levels. But at high levels it's basically a reserve feat, except you're capped at a single digit number of uses per day (that appears to be wrong, apparently I was looking at a weird source, it's still not great). Compare that to a Rogue or a Beguiler, who gets passably large skill bonuses, but also has the ability to do relevant things in combat.

The Totemist is fine. It makes a serviceable melee blender that is probably on par with classes like the Warblade or Rogue that do lots of combat damage and have some minimal non-combat abilities.

heavyfuel

2018-09-10, 01:57 PM

The Soulborn sucks a lot. It's a Paladin, except Soulmelds are worse than spells and it doesn't get the wealth of splat material that the Paladin does. The class's one saving grace is that you can play as alignments that aren't Lawful Good, but the Paladins of Freedom, Tyranny, and Slaughter are right there in Unearthed Arcana.

People keep telling me the Incarnate is good, but I don't believe them. All it really does is get very large skill bonuses. But very large skill bonuses aren't all that useful, and its options in combat are pretty anemic, particularly at high levels. Apparently you're supposed to rely on dissolving spittle, but it's not really all that impressive. At low levels it's fine because you can beat the essentia curve and do four or five dice of acid damage at low levels. But at high levels it's basically a reserve feat, except you're capped at a single digit number of uses per day. Compare that to a Rogue or a Beguiler, who gets passably large skill bonuses, but also has the ability to do relevant things in combat.

The Totemist is fine. It makes a serviceable melee blender that is probably on par with classes like the Warblade or Rogue that do lots of combat damage and have some minimal non-combat abilities.

So you're ranking them 5, 5, 3?

OgresAreCute

2018-09-10, 02:07 PM

The only change I could imagine happening to these is maybe putting Incarnate down to tier 4 with rogue. Don't really see the other two moving in either direction.

Cosi

2018-09-10, 02:15 PM

The only change I could imagine happening to these is maybe putting Incarnate down to tier 4 with rogue. Don't really see the other two moving in either direction.

The Rogue is way better than the Incarnate, unless there's something huge I'm missing. The difference between the Rogue's +10 to Climb and the Incarnate's +20 to Climb is not very big, but the difference between the Rogue's ability to deal 40d6 damage per round and the Incarnate's ability to deal 15d6 damage per round is. I just don't see what the killer app for the Incarnate is supposed to be. Skill bonuses are unimpressive, their damage isn't really big enough to matter, and they don't have very much else that I know of.

OgresAreCute

2018-09-10, 02:25 PM

Nifft

2018-09-10, 02:43 PM

Incarnate gets legitimate class features as soulmelds. Trapfinding, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, animating a zombie as a pet (for free, but only one at a time), plus class feature analogues like walking on water, seeing invisibility, dispelling concealment in an area, continuous immunity to compulsions, or bypassing an incorporeal creature's miss chance.

These features aren't as good as spells, of course, but the Incarnate does get a soulmeld which grants a significant bonus to UMD -- which is as close as a skill-user gets to spells. Also, similarly to prepared spells, the Incarnate can swap out what she's got for new tricks if she knows in advance what to expect.

If an Incarnate were forced to just pick one set of melds and had to stick with them for a whole level, the Incarnate would be T4 or T5 (adequate in some roles; "F for effort" in other roles) -- but she can swap out her melds to meet a new role overnight, and that means she's meeting the criteria for being adequate at solving some problems, and (with prep time) kinda competent at solving all the problems, which is T3.

Probably low T3 though (official vote: T3.5) -- for a skill-based class, it's starved of actual skill ranks. For a melee / ranged class, it's got awful BAB and poor HP. For a UMD class, it doesn't even have the damn skill on its list, nor a way to take 10 on UMD checks. Unlike a prepared caster, it can be difficult for an Incarnate to perform outside of her expected roles -- unless she invests in UMD and keeps that as a back-up role, which hampers her ability to fully exploit her daily re-spec. And at high levels, having skill bonuses rather than spells is not great at all -- at high levels this may turn into a T4, though the weekly gate could arguably turn it into a T2, but I'm not going to argue that.

Though it's outside the scope of this thread, I'd say that Incarnate is best as a dip / mix-in class. For example an Incarnate 2 / (WizPsi) 3 / Soul (CasManifes)ter 10 is great fun, well worth the 2-level dip. Similarly as a 1 or 2 level prefix to Chameleon it can contribute in a solid way. Also, the class is excellent in Gestalt, where the weird bonus mechanism stacks with skill ranks and spell effects.

Soulborn is bad at its job. Just give the d10 HD and full BAB to Incarnates, and let them have the (few) Soulborn-exclusive melds too. Ugh. This thing is so awful it makes me want to homebrew.

Verdict: T5, bad at its job but not Commoner bad.

Totemist is a swiss army chainsaw. It can uber-charge, but also it can stealth and fly. It's not as good at role-swapping as an Incarnate, but it's better at its core competencies (which largely center around face-stabbing).

I want to give it a solid T3 because I have enjoyed playing a Totemist, but it's probably a T3.2 -- playing a bit like a Barbarian, but less straightforward. It doesn't get nearly as many class feature replacement melds as an Incarnate, and its skill bonus meld choices are far fewer -- but its combat competence is higher, and the few tricks that it does get are overall better (Move-action teleportation, turning Ethereal while moving, Pounce, breathing fire / cold / sonic, etc.).

Going beyond the scope of this thread, Totemist as a mix-in for Soul (CasManifes)ter is also quite fun as a weird gish, and it's great as a 2-level prefix for Chameleon, and it can be amazing in Gestalt.

OgresAreCute

2018-09-10, 02:57 PM

Totemist is a swiss army chainsaw. It can uber-charge, but also it can stealth and fly. It's not as good at role-swapping as an Incarnate, but it's better at its core competencies (which largely center around face-stabbing).

I want to give it a T3 because I have enjoyed playing a Totemist, but it's probably a high T4 like a Barbarian. It doesn't get nearly as many class feature replacement melds as an Incarnate, and its skill bonus meld choices are far fewer. But I'm open to arguments that it's actually a T3 because I like the thing.

Going beyond the scope of this thread, Totemist as a mix-in for Soul (CasManifes)ter is also quite fun as a weird gish, and it's great as a 2-level prefix for Chameleon, and it can be amazing in Gestalt.

Totemist compared to barbarian has as many skill points, a better list and access to skill boosts from melds. In addition, it gets stuff like flight, teleports, multi-target stunning and limited save-or-die effects. I'd say a totemist is more or less comparable to a ToB class and should be tier 3 as such.

Cosi

2018-09-10, 03:03 PM

Nifft

2018-09-10, 03:08 PM

The Rogue is way better than the Incarnate, unless there's something huge I'm missing. The difference between the Rogue's +10 to Climb and the Incarnate's +20 to Climb is not very big, but the difference between the Rogue's ability to deal 40d6 damage per round and the Incarnate's ability to deal 15d6 damage per round is. I just don't see what the killer app for the Incarnate is supposed to be. Skill bonuses are unimpressive, their damage isn't really big enough to matter, and they don't have very much else that I know of. Incarnates can make decisions like:
- Today I'm going to walk on water.
- Today I can fly (in a limited way).
- Today I can see invisibility.
- Today I can spit acid.
- Today I'm immune to charms & compulsions.
- Today I have Trapfinding and a bonus on some related skills.
- etc.

Rogues can't do that -- they get Trapfinding (or trade it away), they allocate their skills at level-up, and they're done. Yes the Rogue gets MORE skills, from a MUCH better list, but the Incarnate has the type of day-to-day tactical flexibility which separates a Wizard from a Sorcerer.

Totemist compared to barbarian has as many skill points, a better list and access to skill boosts from melds. In addition, it gets stuff like flight, teleports, multi-target stunning and limited save-or-die effects. I'd say a totemist is more or less comparable to a ToB class and should be tier 3 as such. That seems like a very reasonable comparison.

Is there a feature-to-feature comparison that someone has made? I see a few obvious similarities like Shadow Hand teleportation <-> Blink Shirt, kinda, but I'm not sure exactly how they stack up.

Cosi

2018-09-10, 03:10 PM

Incarnates can make decisions like:
- Today I'm going to walk on water.
- Today I can fly (in a limited way).
- Today I can see invisibility.
- Today I can spit acid.
- Today I'm immune to charms & compulsions.
- Today I have Trapfinding and a bonus on some related skills.
- etc.

Sure? But they can't kill things, which is the core competency of any D&D character. I understand that they do lots of things outside of a fight. But what do they do in a fight, and why do I care about it?

Goaty14

2018-09-10, 03:36 PM

- Today I can spit acid.

Sure? But they can't kill things, which is the core competency of any D&D character. I understand that they do lots of things outside of a fight. But what do they do in a fight, and why do I care about it?

Ahem.

Yes, they can kill things, but they can't kill things as well as a rogue can. That alone doesn't set them up nor down a tier, as it can be visibly shown that a good class need not the ability to kill things (i.e wizard, bard, factotum, monk) well in order to be viable. There are ways to contribute to combat other than HP damage, y'know.

heavyfuel

2018-09-10, 03:39 PM

I've seen mentioned that Incarnates have access to some decent BfC, yet no one here has mentioned it. I'm not familiar with the class to provide my own judgement though.

Nifft

2018-09-10, 03:47 PM

That seems like a very long list of options that aren't relevant to combat. If the Incarnate got maneuvers or sneak attack or DFI or anything that made it useful in combat I could understand that ranking, but as is I don't see how you can justify a ranking like that in a game as combat focused as D&D. Your contributions in a fight are a ranged attack that does slightly more damage than a single sneak attack, and one zombie. How are the things this class does better than a Rogue (various utility options, arguably better at UMD) more relevant than the things a Rogue does better than it (massively more damage in combat)?

Sure? But they can't kill things, which is the core competency of any D&D character. I understand that they do lots of things outside of a fight. But what do they do in a fight, and why do I care about it?

In combat they've got a few tricks with the power of [Reserve] feats (acid ranged touch, electricity or neg energy touch), a few ways to buff allies (including a 30 ft. range +1 luck bonus to attack & damage -- stacks with Bard's morale and such), and some frankly disappointing ways to compensate for their terrible BAB.

When those [Reserve] tricks are ineffective, they have medium armor and simple weapons. They're going to contribute in combat, but they're not going to shine.

At level 3 they get Incarnum Radiance, which almost does compensate for their terrible BAB:

Good: Your body shines with silvery light. You gain a +1 bonus to AC; this bonus improves by 1 for every five levels gained (+2 at 5th level, +3 at 10th, +4 at 15th, and +5 at 20th level).

Evil: An ash-gray aura surrounds you. You gain a +2 bonus on melee damage rolls; this bonus improves by 2 for every five levels gained (+4 at 5th level, +6 at 10th, +8 at 15th, and +10 at 20th level).

Lawful: You glow with a blood-red corona. You gain a +1 bonus on melee attack rolls; this bonus improves by 1 for every five levels gained (+2 at 5th level, +3 at 10th, +4 at 15th, and +5 at 20th level).

Chaotic: A faint green nimbus surrounds your body. You gain a 10-foot increase to your base land speed. This is considered a bonus. This increase improves by 10 feet for every five levels gained (+20 at 5th level, +30 at 10th, +40 at 15th, and +50 at 20th level).
... unless you're Chaotic, in which case you just suck.

This lasts as long as a Barbarian's Rage, and like a Barbarian's Rage it leaves you Fatigued if you do the thing that makes it halfway decent, which is the level 7 ability to share the bonus with all allies in 30 ft.

A Fighter can flank with the Rogue; an Incarnate can give the Rogue and everyone else a bonus to AC, to damage, or to melee attacks. (Or to move speed but don't.)

So they can use Soulmelds to make themselves halfway decent at combat, and Incarnum Radiance to temporarily make that more than half decent -- and at 7+ level they buff everyone else nearby, too.

Including UMD and all the situational utility stuff, I think it's enough to get them into (low) T3.

AmberVael

2018-09-10, 03:54 PM

I'm inclined to go with these rankings:

Totemist: Tier 3. Using natural attack soulmelds, Totemist makes for a respectable offensive character. In addition, they get some really useful melds like Blink Shirt, Disenchanter Mask, Manticore Belt and Phase Cloak, not to mention a myriad of other neat little options. Plus, they have at least a few skill points. I definitely think they can hold their own in the tier 3 list.

Incarnate: Tier 4. Incarnate is underwhelming. Its chassis is terrible, and its features and soulmelds just lack punch. It can perform a variety of roles at a below average level, and boasts no real focus. It is best with skill checks, but even there they don't have much to boast about given the low amount of essentia they can invest in a given soulmeld, and the limited number of soulmelds they can shape. They have day to day flexibility, but very few choices worth making and no abilities to tell them what they might need the next day. Its only a handful of slightly interesting melds that keep them from tier 5.

Soulborn; Tier 5. In theory, they're the incarnum version of Ranger and Paladin - a melee class with a splash of magic. Unfortunately, soulmelds are way less impressive than spells, and their access to soulmelds is just terrible. They don't get ANY essentia until level six. Their first bind is at level 8! And their soulmeld list is slim and even worse than Incarnate's. In the end I'm pretty sure its worse than the fighter, and that's impressively bad.

Cosi

2018-09-10, 05:19 PM

Yes, they can kill things, but they can't kill things as well as a rogue can.

They can kill things as well as a Warmage's reserve feat can. No one is praising the Wizard for a crossbow full attack, and this is only slightly above that.

That alone doesn't set them up nor down a tier, as it can be visibly shown that a good class need not the ability to kill things (i.e wizard, bard, factotum, monk) well in order to be viable.

The Wizard can in fact kill things. It gets finger of death and cloudkill. It even gets better direct damage than the Incarnate, with acid orb dealing d6/level base, and having the potential for metamagic stacking into absurdity. And it gets planar binding over "one zombie".

The Bard can do DFI, and is frankly a lot worse than most people think. The core Bard's only non-crap option is charm spam (or the closely related Diplomacy abuse). Outside of core it gets other options, but those options are things like "use DFI to provide Rogue levels of DPS" or "basically be a Wizard with Sublime Chord" (as mentioned, Wizards are very much able to kill things).

The Factotum is just a straight up bad class. It's dysfunctional, not very good even if you houserule it into functionality, and people only care about it because they assume it will get favorable rulings and be allowed to use abusive spells.

There are ways to contribute to combat other than HP damage, y'know.

Yes, and the Incarnate can't do those either.

In combat they've got a few tricks with the power of [Reserve] feats (acid ranged touch, electricity or neg energy touch), a few ways to buff allies (including a 30 ft. range +1 luck bonus to attack & damage -- stacks with Bard's morale and such), and some frankly disappointing ways to compensate for their terrible BAB.

"A +1 luck bonus" is not exactly an inspiring combat option. If your group has a lot of caster types, you seriously might not notice a +1 bonus.

When those [Reserve] tricks are ineffective, they have medium armor and simple weapons. They're going to contribute in combat, but they're not going to shine.

So all it takes to "contribute in combat" is "medium armor and simple weapons"? Does the godsdamned Warrior contribute in combat? Would you say an Adept with a d6/level fire blast and slightly better proficiencies was better than the Rogue?

Including UMD and all the situational utility stuff, I think it's enough to get them into (low) T3.

I don't understand how you can say that makes them better than the Rogue. The Rogue is roughly as effective in combat as the Incarnate is out of it (probably more), roughly as effective out of combat as the Incarnate is in it (again, probably more), and also gets UMD. Given that combat is a much bigger part of D&D than non-combat, and that it's much to use roleplaying to mitigating weak non-combat abilities than weak combat ones, I just don't see that making any sense.

ExLibrisMortis

2018-09-10, 05:30 PM

Incarnates have the ability to get SR 37 at level 18, which is very good. On the other hand, it costs a feat, 15 incarnate levels, 25 000 gp, and half your essentia, which is very bad.

Roughly the same problem applies to their ability to get a fly speed of 90' (perfect), +8 weapons (overcoming DR/epic at level 12), +8 CL when casting [healing] spells, 9d6 Dissolving Spittle/Lightning Gauntlet attacks, and so on.

On the other hand, telepathy, continuous true seeing, spell immunity, and gate are pretty cool, even if they each have their drawbacks.

Note that Share Soulmeld is a thing, and a Dissolving Spittle build typically features two standard-action attacks for 18d6 damage each.

All in all, I'd rate incarnates at tier 4, but they're at their best when used to enhance another class, meaning either theurge or gestalt.

Cosi

2018-09-10, 05:43 PM

All in all, I'd rate incarnates at tier 4, but they're at their best when used to enhance another class, meaning either theurge or gestalt.

That I'll agree with. If you already had the abilities of a Warblade or something, I would probably put Incarnate above Rogue (but still below basically any class with casting, and probably Factotum). But on its own the class doesn't really do enough to satisfy me.

Nifft

2018-09-10, 06:04 PM

"A +1 luck bonus" is not exactly an inspiring combat option. If your group has a lot of caster types, you seriously might not notice a +1 bonus. It's an unusual category of +1, which stacks with most things. Dismissing a stacking bonus would be very poor optimization. It applies to attack & damage rolls, or saving throws, or skill checks -- so it's even better out of combat, but also useful within.

So all it takes to "contribute in combat" is "medium armor and simple weapons"? Does the godsdamned Warrior contribute in combat? Would you say an Adept with a d6/level fire blast and slightly better proficiencies was better than the Rogue? Not by itself, obviously, but if you can fly and shoot a light crossbow then you're probably going to beat That Damn Crab, or a host of other level-appropriate challenges.

Having continuous Perfect flight at level 4 isn't shabby at all, and is a combat-relevant advantage until WBL catches everyone else up.

Similarly, walking on water is a utility power until you're facing a line of archers standing across a murky canal or whatever. Then suddenly it's a combat power, because this combat involves water as an obstacle.

I don't understand how you can say that makes them better than the Rogue. The Rogue is roughly as effective in combat as the Incarnate is out of it (probably more), roughly as effective out of combat as the Incarnate is in it (again, probably more), and also gets UMD. Given that combat is a much bigger part of D&D than non-combat, and that it's much to use roleplaying to mitigating weak non-combat abilities than weak combat ones, I just don't see that making any sense. Incarnate may not exceed a Rogue at the Rogue's specialty, but one Incarnate can cover a lot more niches than one Rogue. The Rogue is static (like a Sorcerer); the Incarnate can re-spec daily (like a Wizard).

It seems to me that the flexibility to do all the things is what T3 requires -- not do them better than the T4 specialist, but do all of them instead of just a few.

Goaty14

2018-09-11, 12:55 AM

I guess the lesson to be learned is that "being able to do multiple things" and "switch out your class features on a daily basis" are two completely different things and do not relate in any way whatsoever. I mean, if they did relate at all, then we wouldn't be having a discussion about the incarnate being T3...

The Wizard can in fact kill things.

So it can. However, *having to ability to* and *must be able to* are mutually exclusive terms. I mean, the "GOD" wizard still contributes to combat without killing anything, and so why can't the incarnate?

And it gets planar binding over "one zombie".

I thought that we had already established that the incarnate, by any means, is not T1, nor is there any argument suggesting that. It's a pretty good looking scarecrow though.

Yes, and the Incarnate can't do those either.

Because...? The incarnate can still do things, not necessarily well, but being able to do everything exceptionally well is the argument for a T1 class, not the T3 argument that is being made.

"A +1 luck bonus" is not exactly an inspiring combat option. If your group has a lot of caster types, you seriously might not notice a +1 bonus.

If the group has a lot of caster types, any other T3 is not likely to get noticed in terms of contribution, either.

OgresAreCute

2018-09-11, 03:59 AM

Not by itself, obviously, but if you can fly and shoot a light crossbow then you're probably going to beat That Damn Crab, or a host of other level-appropriate challenges.

Having continuous Perfect flight at level 4 isn't shabby at all, and is a combat-relevant advantage until WBL catches everyone else up.

Similarly, walking on water is a utility power until you're facing a line of archers standing across a murky canal or whatever. Then suddenly it's a combat power, because this combat involves water as an obstacle.

That continuous perfect flight is only at 20 feet per move action, and costs you 1/4 of your essentia + your only chakra bind at that level. You also can't hover, if you don't end your move on a solid surface, you fall. Still useful for "safespotting" from a ledge, but you're no air elemental or pixie.
Cerulean Sandals are pretty alright, giving water walk as a shaped soulmeld (expected it to be a bind, to be honest). However, it's only useful if you know 8+ hours ahead of time that you're going to need it, and you can't use them at the same time as the airstep sandals which are probably better in most, if not all cases. Not to mention that charging a line of archers with d6 hit die at level 4 sounds like a quick way to die.

Lotheb

2018-09-11, 06:47 AM

On the other hand, telepathy, continuous true seeing, spell immunity, and gate are pretty cool, even if they each have their drawbacks.

Whoa wait do Incarnates get GATE ??? How has that slipped by?

Goaty14

2018-09-11, 06:55 AM

Whoa wait do Incarnates get GATE ??? How has that slipped by?

It didn't. Once a week, at level 19, an incarnate can emulate a gate spell (still using the xp costs and all). At that point you're better off getting gate via truenamer or healer.

Cosi

2018-09-11, 07:50 AM

It's an unusual category of +1, which stacks with most things. Dismissing a stacking bonus would be very poor optimization. It applies to attack & damage rolls, or saving throws, or skill checks -- so it's even better out of combat, but also useful within.

No, bad. Stop neglecting opportunity cost. Yes, the bonus exists. But it's not big enough to justify a party slot (even against Warblades and Healers) and the Incarnate isn't otherwise good enough for an incidental bonus to matter.

Not by itself, obviously, but if you can fly and shoot a light crossbow then you're probably going to beat That Damn Crab, or a host of other level-appropriate challenges.

The airstep sandals aren't real flight. Unless there's somewhere you can stop that's out of reach of the Crab, it's still going to gank you because you have to land somewhere you are "solidly supported". That's a lot less like fly than it is like Climb. The circumstances where you do better than a Rogue who invested in Climb are pretty sharply limited. It's basically "chasms" and "ledges that are taller than the Crab's reach, short enough for you to fly up, and smooth enough the Rogue can't climb them".

It seems to me that the flexibility to do all the things is what T3 requires -- not do them better than the T4 specialist, but do all of them instead of just a few.

It seems to me we don't have to check against what it seems to you, because there was a provided definition:

The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

So what problems is the Incarnate "very good" at solving? Because they're certainly bad enough in combat that they aren't "competent" at solving nearly all problems.

I guess the lesson to be learned is that "being able to do multiple things" and "switch out your class features on a daily basis" are two completely different things and do not relate in any way whatsoever. I mean, if they did relate at all, then we wouldn't be having a discussion about the incarnate being T3...

Well, yes, because there's an implicit "effectively" (under this set of definitions, it's actually pretty explicit) in "do multiple things". Indeed, the Adept, who can swap their spells every day and gets such effects as polymorph, raise dead, animate dead, and commune is Tier Four and the Warlock, who doesn't get to swap their spells every day, is Tier Three. Because part of the ranking is how effective you are at what you do, not just the variety of things you do. Also, Nifft is (or was initially) voting Tier Three for the Incarnate and Tier Four for the Totemist despite the fact that both get to swap their powers daily.

So it can. However, *having to ability to* and *must be able to* are mutually exclusive terms. I mean, the "GOD" wizard still contributes to combat without killing anything, and so why can't the incarnate?

An enemy who has been incapacitated with color spray, glitterdust, stinking cloud, or evard's black tentacles is functionally dead. And yes, while you can contribute nonlethally, the Incarnate doesn't. If it did, you would just say "what about the <insert soulmeld> which <level appropriate effect>s" instead of asking rhetorical questions.

I thought that we had already established that the incarnate, by any means, is not T1, nor is there any argument suggesting that. It's a pretty good looking scarecrow though.

Okay, how many steps down from planar binding is "one zombie"? Because I'm pretty sure the answer is "more than two".

If the group has a lot of caster types, any other T3 is not likely to get noticed in terms of contribution, either.

You mean like the Adept, which is Tier Four, but is totally a caster? Or the Warmage, which is Tier Three, but is also a caster? Or the Bard, which is again Tier Three, but is (or can be built as) a caster? Because you can build an either party of casters, none of which are supposed to be higher than Tier Three.

liquidformat

2018-09-11, 09:18 AM

Soulborn float somewhere in the tier 5 range, if they got binds earlier and a larger essentia pool sooner they would jump up to tier 3 but as is they are shot in the foot by how delayed their schtick is. I am using one right now as a side in a gestalt game where we are high level and the fact that they can have immunity to just about everything makes them very nasty if you setup your other side to take advantage of that.

Incarnates seem to be a high tier 4 or very low tier 3. Their skill bonuses, and option are very useful and make them able to float around in what role they can fill. However, like has been stated they are limited in their combat utility. Honestly I think they are the opposite case of a barbarian, barbarians tend to be great and powerful in battle but often useless outside of it. Whereas, Incarnates can do a whole heck of a lot but stumble in combat.

Totemist are a solid tier 3, they are powerful in combat and their utility outside is enhanced by the random assortment of choices you have for soul melds.

Efrate

2018-09-11, 11:20 AM

totemist are an easy t3. they are similar to initiators in many ways, just more flexible day to day, and often better outside of combat, but lacking some of the punch.

incarnate is low 3 or high 4, but I like the class so I want to make it t3. they can be amazing fear stackers with huge intimidate bonuses, and have a bunch of niche stuff. their Chassis is bad and they really should be merged with soulborn since that class can go die in a fire. they are pretty decent generalist just without nova capabilities. as they focus they will be better than most specialists at one thing outside combat, but they suffer in combat. plus hey gate once a week is still gate.

soulborn is 5. just bad. their meld list can be nice for shape soulmeld for other characters however. a 10 level martial prestige class for those dipping incarnum
Is what they would have been if not just merged with incarnate. put all their features in 10 levels with full bab and d10 hd and I would gladly add it onto something. as is just pass.

liquidformat

2018-09-11, 11:38 AM

soulborn is 5. just bad. their meld list can be nice for shape soulmeld for other characters however. a 10 level martial prestige class for those dipping incarnum
Is what they would have been if not just merged with incarnate. put all their features in 10 levels with full bab and d10 hd and I would gladly add it onto something. as is just pass.

Turning them into a 10 level PRC sounds like a great idea to me, it also fills a hole that was noticeable in the prcs inside this book. I wonder what prereques should be? No True Neutral alignment seems like a given and 7 or 10 bab, and maybe an essentia pool?

Efrate

2018-09-11, 11:51 AM

bab 6, essential pool,or possibly shape soulmeld(any). no true neutral alignment.
make it pretty easy to get into so people are incentivised to take it.

Particle_Man

2018-09-11, 11:55 AM

Luccan

2018-09-11, 12:34 PM

1) should the specific alignment of the incarnate/soulborn matter? I have heard good things about the lawful neutral incarnate (and this very thread pooh-poohed the chaotic neutral one). And hey, CE soulborns are immune to shadows from level 2 up, which is kinda cool

2) Are you going to look at the Magic of Incarnum prestige classes? I have heard good things about the Sapphire Hierophant (in theory you can get in with cleric 3/incarnate 1, so a swift entry multi-presitige-class).

1)Potentially, but that just means we know where its top and bottom choices for alignment are. An unoptomized Incarnate is CN, while an optimized one is any of the other three alignments that's relevant to their build.

2) The purpose of these specific threads are to tier the base classes, on the assumption that each class has as much chance to optimize as another. Prestige classes might enter into that, but I would argue "I can just multiclass into a gestalt prestige class with a much higher tiered class" has very little to do with the individual class's power or versatility i.e. an Incarnate's tier doesn't change just because they can take levels of cleric and Sapphire Hierophant.

Bucky

2018-09-11, 12:55 PM

Incarnate: Tier 4...They have day to day flexibility, but very few choices worth making and no abilities to tell them what they might need the next day.

Don't they have the ability to swap soulmelds 1-3 times per day?

Cosi

2018-09-11, 01:01 PM

Don't they have the ability to swap soulmelds 1-3 times per day?

One soulmeld, and the new one can't be bound to a Chakra, with uses at 5/11/17. Takes a full round action.

Andor13

2018-09-11, 04:03 PM

It's worth noting that the Incarnum classes should get a slight bump from their easy access to ... Incarnum. Meaning you can drag additional utility out of the classes fairly easily by dropping a feat on a cross class meld. For example a Totemist who spends a feat on Lifebond Vestments (or an Incarnate who drops one on Phoenix Belt) can generate unlimited out of combat healing by standing in a bonfire. (Yes, it's crappy and high level but free healing is hard to come by in 3.5.)

It's worth noting that the authors of the book apparently never thought of the ramifications of that feat, because what happens if a Neutral Totemist (or NG Soulborn) takes Incarnate Weapon? Beats the hell out of me.

Nifft

2018-09-11, 05:09 PM

That continuous perfect flight is only at 20 feet per move action, and costs you 1/4 of your essentia + your only chakra bind at that level. You also can't hover, if you don't end your move on a solid surface, you fall. Still useful for "safespotting" from a ledge, but you're no air elemental or pixie. Perfect flight by definition includes Hovering, and when you get the upgrade there's no exception about not being allowed to Hover.

I think that the upgrade permits you to Hover between move actions with the bound sandals.

Cerulean Sandals are pretty alright, giving water walk as a shaped soulmeld (expected it to be a bind, to be honest). However, it's only useful if you know 8+ hours ahead of time that you're going to need it Yeah. Incarnate overall suffers if you can't prep accordingly. It's a T3 because it can do all the things, but doing any of the things does require forewarning (or the ability to retreat & re-spec over the next 9 hours).

Elkad

2018-09-11, 11:51 PM

Perfect flight by definition includes Hovering, and when you get the upgrade there's no exception about not being allowed to Hover.

I think that the upgrade permits you to Hover between move actions with the bound sandals.

Yeah. Incarnate overall suffers if you can't prep accordingly. It's a T3 because it can do all the things, but doing any of the things does require forewarning (or the ability to retreat & re-spec over the next 9 hours).

It's a lot of essentia to get any useful speed. 20' at 4th or 30' at 6th level (for half your essentia) is great, but a 15th level Incarnate can still only manage 60'. That's barely functional in combat, even if it didn't take a third of his essentia.
Meanwhile the Warlock is tearing around at 3x that if he cares to.

...unlimited out of combat healing by standing in a bonfire. (Yes, it's crappy and high level but free healing is hard to come by in 3.5.)

At 16th level Incarnate (or 17th Totemist), out-of-combat healing is so minor a consideration as to not matter.

In general, it just feels like the MoI classes start OK, get slightly better, and then fall off hard starting about 12th level. Abilities just don't scale well, and their essential item slots are blocked with Chakras.

noce

2018-09-12, 02:18 AM

OgresAreCute

2018-09-12, 02:37 AM

What is missing in the discussion about incarnate is the fact that you can change your class features on a daily basis, but you cannot change your feats, skill points allocation and stat allocation.
While skill points are almost worthless (cross class umd and you're set), feats are not.

If I want to play a melee evil incarnate, optimizing number of attacks, I'd take, dunno, spinning halberd (it's just an example). But if I need to change to dissolving spittle, I cannot change feats accordingly, so I won't be as good at it.
On the other hand, if I want to put my feats in good use, I'm somewhat limited to binding the same soulmelds each day (at least the majority of them).

So it seems to me that while you can build an incarnate in a couple different ways, you don't really have the capability to change your role on a daily basis, except maybe for a couple of tricks.

I've been thinking about this. The binder (another switch-out-your-features-class) has the same issues, for example if you want to be good at melee you need to bind a melee vestige in addition to spending feats and magic gear on it. I don't think Incarnate has this issue as much as the Binder does, but I'm not really super familiar with Incarnum outside of Totemist. The flipside of this is that being able to fill multiple roles isn't useful if one of those roles is already filled. Say a class can either be an intimidation brute or a sneaky trapfinder. If you already have a rogue, being able to switch between those two on different days isn't useful because the rogue role is always covered by your teammate.

Nifft

2018-09-12, 06:37 AM

It's a lot of essentia to get any useful speed. 20' at 4th or 30' at 6th level (for half your essentia) is great, but a 15th level Incarnate can still only manage 60'. That's barely functional in combat, even if it didn't take a third of his essentia.
Meanwhile the Warlock is tearing around at 3x that if he cares to. Those numbers are a bit low.

You get to move 10 ft. + 10 ft. per Essentia.

At level 1, that's up to 20 ft.
At level 3, that's up to 30 ft.
At level 6, that's up to 40 ft.

What is missing in the discussion about incarnate is the fact that you can change your class features on a daily basis, but you cannot change your feats, skill points allocation and stat allocation.
While skill points are almost worthless (cross class umd and you're set), feats are not.

If I want to play a melee evil incarnate, optimizing number of attacks, I'd take, dunno, spinning halberd (it's just an example). But if I need to change to dissolving spittle, I cannot change feats accordingly, so I won't be as good at it.
On the other hand, if I want to put my feats in good use, I'm somewhat limited to binding the same soulmelds each day (at least the majority of them).

So it seems to me that while you can build an incarnate in a couple different ways, you don't really have the capability to change your role on a daily basis, except maybe for a couple of tricks. I think you mostly do okay just by naively building for one type of combat (melee or ranged) and using most of your soulmeld features for non-combat stuff.

If you build for melee, it's relatively easy to handle a bit of ranged combat by spitting acid-gobs -- touch attacks are notoriously un-demanding, and the acid spit isn't compatible with Rapid Shot so you're safe there too. You could bind Sighting Gloves if you're sure you'll need Precise Shot but otherwise your spittle is able to carry your minor in ranged combat effectively by itself, without any feats.

Another thing to consider: are you really putting chaotic incarnates in the same tier of law incarnates? Do we really put an Abrupt Jaunt Conjurer who bans Evocation and Necromancy in the same tier as a Focused Specialist Evoker who bans Conjuration, Transmutation, and Illusion?

Yes, that's exactly what we do.

The fact that you have the option of being Lawful means the class is at least as good as its Lawful subset.

Gnaeus

2018-09-12, 08:44 AM

Do we really put an Abrupt Jaunt Conjurer who bans Evocation and Necromancy in the same tier as a Focused Specialist Evoker who bans Conjuration, Transmutation, and Illusion?

Yes, that's exactly what we do.

The fact that you have the option of being Lawful means the class is at least as good as its Lawful subset.

That’s not exactly correct. We compare using equivalent optimization. The evoker gets compared with a T5 TWF fighter or a chaotic incarnate, the Abrupt Jaunt Conjurer with a lawful incarnate or a fighter built around charging or a chain trip build.

Although one of the general features of T3 is a high optimization floor and the general capacity to always be useful. So I suppose if the chaotic incarnate is bad enough that would be an argument for putting the entire class in T4. The fact that there isn’t an obvious fluff reason for low system mastery players why you shouldn’t put that C in alignment is also a mark against it.

Cosi

2018-09-12, 09:16 AM

Perfect flight by definition includes Hovering, and when you get the upgrade there's no exception about not being allowed to Hover.

But there is a rule that says you have to end your move "solidly supported". That's independent of the maneuverability of the airstep sandals.

Abilities just don't scale well, and their essential item slots are blocked with Chakras.

This is true. It's not quite as bad as it could be, because you can get slotless stuff, but the fact that you have to chose between using your class features and your wealth is a real penalty. Particularly because it's not like those class features are awesome enough that you'd want to give up magic items for them. Consider those airstep sandals for a second. Yes, they let you fly around. But they also stop you from wearing a magic item in your boots slot.

I don't think Incarnate has this issue as much as the Binder does, but I'm not really super familiar with Incarnum outside of Totemist.

I would think the magic item issue would make the Incarnate's problems worse. At least a Binder who switches his binds around can be assured his magic items still work. If an Incarnate respecs, they might end up unable to use their magic items.

The flipside of this is that being able to fill multiple roles isn't useful if one of those roles is already filled.

This is true. I think this forum also tends to overestimate the value of the jack-of-all-trades shtick. Doing a variety of things at a sub-par rate is generally pretty bad, because the game usually produces level appropriate challenges. If you have an amount of stealth (or diplomacy, or combat) that doesn't let you overcome an encounter, that's not terribly different from simply not having that ability at all. As a result, rankings tend to overrate classes that do lots of things poorly (Bard, Factotum, Incarante) and underrate those that do one thing well (Rogue, Totemist).

If you build for melee, it's relatively easy to handle a bit of ranged combat by spitting acid-gobs

In what sense is a ranged attack that is worse than a Warmage's Reserve Feat "handling" ranged combat?

Nifft

2018-09-12, 09:57 AM

That’s not exactly correct. We compare using equivalent optimization. The evoker gets compared with a T5 TWF fighter Cite this. Show me where a Wizard has been called anything other than T1.

But there is a rule that says you have to end your move "solidly supported". That's independent of the maneuverability of the airstep sandals. Do you think "smooth ground" can solidly support a character?

In what sense is a ranged attack that is worse than a Warmage's Reserve Feat "handling" ranged combat? 2d6 acid / 30 ft. at level 1.

3d6 acid / 30 ft. at level 3.

Show me the Warmage's Reserve Feat which can beat both of those numbers.

... or admit that you're cluelessly flailing at a class you don't like for some reason, which I don't even like that much, but holy crap bro. You are failing to justify your bias.

Zaq

2018-09-12, 10:03 AM

Oh man. So glad this project is back. I’ve got some stuff to say about these classes when I’m not on mobile.

heavyfuel, do you have any official stance on whether fractional/borderline tier votes are kosher? I try to avoid them in general, but historically I haven’t always succeeded.

Cosi

2018-09-12, 10:43 AM

Show me the Warmage's Reserve Feat which can beat both of those numbers.

And at 18th level you're dealing 7d6 to the Warmage's 9d6. I already said the class had good numbers at low levels, you're not getting any points by pointing that out. You're actually ahead until 8th level (unless the Warmage hits multiple targets with Fiery Burst), but you fall behind at 10th level and never recover (unless I missed another cap buff after the Expanded Soulmeld Capacity feat and class feature). And this is relative to a Reserve Feat I remind you. Beating it by a die or two at some levels is not impressive. If the Warmage is casting actual spells, you lose as soon as he gets second level spells or hits more than on target.

Nifft

2018-09-12, 11:02 AM

And at 18th level you're dealing 7d6 to the Warmage's 9d6. Even at that most favorable endpoint, you're still wrong: with equal feat investment the Incarnate gets an extra +1d6; with extra soulmelds for synergy, which is viable at level 18, you've got bonus ranged damage. Binding the soulmeld to the Throat chakra doubles all the previous damage, so that's 14d6 without trying, or 16d6 if you invest a single feat, plus double the bonus damage if you have a source for that (a soulmeld or item or feat or whatever). Every round.

You're not going to beat this sustained damage with anything you've shown so far, and certainly not at high levels -- that's the range where the Incarnate gets to act like an actual Wizard for 1 round per week.

Dissolving Spittle is one basic combat competency that comes with the class for free, before feats or UMD come into play.

Cosi

2018-09-12, 11:20 AM

Even at that most favorable endpoint, you're still wrong: with equal feat investment the Incarnate gets an extra +1d6

That d6 is accounted for. You get 4 points base, 1 point from the Expanded Soulmeld Capacity feat, and 2 points from your Expanded Soulmeld Capacity class feature. Again, unless I've missed something.

Binding the soulmeld to the Throat chakra doubles all the previous damage

It doesn't exactly double the damage. It makes it a DoT. That's not clearly superior to Fiery Burst's AoE (which quadruples the damage if you hit four targets). If you average two enemies a round, Fiery Burst is better.

Also it takes one of your five Chakra binds and stops you from wearing a necklace. That's actually not trivial, since it means you don't get an Amulet of Health or a Periapt of Wisdom to boost your primary ability scores. In fact, without an Amulet of Health, you can't shape all your soulmelds without some external investment into CON. That's by no means a serious problem because you only need a +1 from 18 CON, but it emphasizes the problems the Incarnate has with magic items. And Expanded Meld Capacity (feat) won't work unless you have at least a +7 CON modifier, which demands even more investment.

You're not going to beat this sustained damage with anything you've shown so far, and certainly not at high levels

If you hit two enemies you beat it. Fiery Burst also has a way higher ceiling thanks to Circle Magic shenanigans.

Dissolving Spittle is one basic combat competency that comes with the class for free, before feats or UMD come into play.

Dissolving Spittle is less damage per round than Sneak Attack is on one attack, and a competent Rogue gets half a dozen attacks.

Gnaeus

2018-09-12, 11:30 AM

Cite this. Show me where a Wizard has been called anything other than T1..

The wizard is always T1. But that’s because the evoker picking spells based on cool sounding names is as much better as the fighter dual wielding daggers with a couple random Xbow feats as the abrupt jaunt conjurer is above the spiked chain tripper.

You want a cite? How about JaronK from the tier thread.
“A: This system assumes that everything other than mechanics is totally equal. It's a ranking of the mechanical classes themselves, not of the players who use that class. As long as the players are of equal skill and optimize their characters roughly the same amount, it's fine. If one player optimizes a whole lot more than the other, that will shift their position on the chart.”

heavyfuel

2018-09-12, 11:33 AM

That’s not exactly correct. We compare using equivalent optimization. The evoker gets compared with a T5 TWF fighter or a chaotic incarnate, the Abrupt Jaunt Conjurer with a lawful incarnate or a fighter built around charging or a chain trip build.

"Equivalent optimization" shouldn't really be a thing for these threads. Tiers aren't about specific builds, but about classes as a whole. Whether a Chaotic Incarnate isn't as good as a Lawful one shouldn't impact the class' tier. Similarly, a Cleric being played as a healbot doesn't make the Cleric less than Tier 1 since class potential is still there.

heavyfuel, do you have any official stance on whether fractional/borderline tier votes are kosher? I try to avoid them in general, but historically I haven’t always succeeded.

Not only kosher, but encouraged. I much prefer you say something like "Tier 3.5" rather than "low tier 3, high tier 4".

Since it's all going to end up on a table for averaging anyways, unless there's massive consensus on a class' particular tier, it's going to end up with a fractional tier rating anyway.

Nifft

2018-09-12, 11:33 AM

That d6 is accounted for. You get 4 points base, 1 point from the Expanded Soulmeld Capacity feat, and 2 points from your Expanded Soulmeld Capacity class feature. Again, unless I've missed something.
Base soulmeld = 1d6 <-- what I think you missed
base +4 essentia: +4d6
class +2 essentia +2d6
feat +1 essentia +1d6
-------------------------
Total 8d6 including the feat, 7d6 without, then double if you bind the chakra.

It doesn't exactly double the damage. It makes it a DoT. That's not clearly superior to Fiery Burst's AoE (which quarduples the damage if you hit four targets). If you average two enemies a round, Fiery Burst is better. If your targets are that tightly clustered, the Incarnate might prefer to spend a round throwing down a glitterdust or grease via UMD. But that's neither here nor there.

Also it takes one of your five Chakra binds and stops you from wearing a necklace. What it does is impose an extra GP cost on your neck slot item, so you include the Incarnum Focus item in its price. If you have access to MIC, then nothing stops you from wearing a necklace, and adding +Con to your necklace slot is fairly easy. The designers eventually did figure out that we need our Big Six fix.

Dissolving Spittle is less damage per round than Sneak Attack is on one attack, and a competent Rogue gets half a dozen attacks. Sure? But Rogue is a T4 good at combat, with a fixed capability list that can't be swapped out every day.

I bet any competent Ubercharger Barbarian would also out-damage the Incarnate, and I'm certain nobody would find that a compelling argument.

You asserted that the Incarnate lacked basic combat competency -- I've presumably already show that it does have basic competency, since now you're trying to shift the goal-posts to competing against T4 combat-focused character classes.

Cosi

2018-09-12, 11:53 AM

Base soulmeld = 1d6

Oops. Yeah, you get an extra die. Still less than a 9th level Reserve feat.

Sure? But Rogue is a T4 good at combat, with a fixed capability list that can't be swapped out every day.

So what? The Warlock is in Tier Three, and it can't swap it's capabilities every day. The Adept is in Tier Four and it can. Should those be swapped?

This forum dramatically over-values versatility and dramatically under-values competence. It's cargo-cult evaluation based on the fact that the Wizard is very versatile and also very powerful. But it's not powerful because of its versatility. The Sorcerer has 95% of the power of the Wizard and maybe 20% of the versatility. It's almost as good. If we imagine an alternative that flipped those values -- say a Fighter who picked his Fighter feats each day -- it's not nearly as good.

I bet any competent Ubercharger Barbarian would also out-damage the Incarnate, and I'm certain nobody would find that a compelling argument.

I would find that a very compelling argument. Combat is a fundamental part of the game. Walking on water isn't. It's easy to look at "combat" and call it equal to "non-combat". But it's not. It's dramatically more important. Combat competency plus any amount of utility is better than pretty much any amount of utility without combat competency. This isn't even a versatility issue, really. "Combat" contains plenty of different kind of problem to solve.

You asserted that the Incarnate lacked basic combat competency -- I've presumably already show that it does have basic competency, since now you're trying to shift the goal-posts to competing against T4 combat-focused character classes.

I've been referring to the Rogue for most of this thread. I've thought the Rogue was better than the Incarnate since way before this thread started. My point wasn't "you can't match a reserve feat, you're incompetent" so much as "you're so far below competence it takes you effort to match a reserve feat". All the Rogue has to do to match the damage output of a Reserve Feat is trigger Sneak Attack on one round out of every N where N is the number of attacks he gets (so probably once a combat).

Lapak

2018-09-12, 11:55 AM

Nifft

2018-09-12, 12:02 PM

Gnaeus

2018-09-12, 12:12 PM

"Equivalent optimization" shouldn't really be a thing for these threads. Tiers aren't about specific builds, but about classes as a whole. Whether a Chaotic Incarnate isn't as good as a Lawful one shouldn't impact the class' tier. Similarly, a Cleric being played as a healbot doesn't make the Cleric less than Tier 1 since class potential is still there.

Nope. False. Wrong.

Tiers are not about the top potential of the class. They are only, ever, about equivalent optimization. The floor, the ceiling and the average.

The cleric played as a healbot isn’t T1 because he could have taken DMM instead. The cleric played as a healbot is T1 because he still has vastly more playing power than does a badly built fighter, and because the cleric BUILT as a healbot can pick an awesome spell by accident one day and break the campaign with it on the next.

Gnaeus

2018-09-12, 12:16 PM

In my experience the "sweet spot" for the game is levels 3 through 12, inclusive -- I'd argue that the tiers should reflect that range, since it's the most commonly played, and also not the most broken.

Where do you put the "mid-level" and "high-level" demarcations?

The tier system weighs 6-15 most heavily. Then 1-5. 16+ is weighed least.

heavyfuel

2018-09-12, 12:16 PM

One of the things that always stumps me when trying to tier classes is that some classes effectively change tier at different levels. Incarnate and totemist show up in the e6 build competitions frequently, and for a reason: Incarnum classes get access to a lot of their built-in power early, and the ROI in terms of feats and levels is very high at low levels and slopes off as you go up (granted, it's a steeper slope for the Incarnate than the Totemist.)

I'd argue that the Incarnate is a clear, easy T3 at low-mid levels and an equally clear T4 at mid-high levels. A lot of classes that make good dips follow this kind of pattern, e.g. the Factotum. I almost feel that any definitive tier ranking has to take this into account somehow.

In my experience the "sweet spot" for the game is levels 3 through 12, inclusive -- I'd argue that the tiers should reflect that range, since it's the most commonly played, and also not the most broken.

Where do you put the "mid-level" and "high-level" demarcations?

I agree with this sentiment. Unfortunately previous threads didn't take this into account and I don't intend on re-doing them.

If you feel a class is Tier 3 during lower levels, but later becomes Tier 4, feel free to give it a note that reflects this. In this example, a note of "Tier 3.3" might be appropriate.

The threads themselves and the reasoning behind each person's vote will remain available for anyone interested in further research on why each class is in its tier.

Nifft

2018-09-12, 12:22 PM

I agree with this sentiment. Unfortunately previous threads didn't take this into account and I don't intend on re-doing them.

If you feel a class is Tier 3 during lower levels, but later becomes Tier 4, feel free to give it a note that reflects this. In this example, a note of "Tier 3.3" might be appropriate.

The threads themselves and the reasoning behind each person's vote will remain available for anyone interested in further research on why each class is in its tier.
Makes sense. I'll edit my votes post.

Oops. Yeah, you get an extra die. Still less than a 9th level Reserve feat. Wins by several d6 at the first 10 levels of the game, loses by 1d6 at the last 3 levels? That's a significant win for the Incarnate.

Thanks for helping narrow that down. The fact that the Incarnate wins or ties right up to 18th level is pretty good.

So what? The Warlock is in Tier Three, and it can't swap it's capabilities every day. The Adept is in Tier Four and it can. Should those be swapped?

This forum dramatically over-values versatility and dramatically under-values competence. It's cargo-cult evaluation based on the fact that the Wizard is very versatile and also very powerful. But it's not powerful because of its versatility. The Sorcerer has 95% of the power of the Wizard and maybe 20% of the versatility. It's almost as good. If we imagine an alternative that flipped those values -- say a Fighter who picked his Fighter feats each day -- it's not nearly as good. Warblade can do that kinda, and it's part of why a Warblade is good, though in my experience that's more a strategic gear-choosing thing than a tactical daily thing.

It occurs to me that your damage-vs.-[Reserve] argument also applies to a Warlock, but you're not trying to disqualify Warlock from T3.

I would find that a very compelling argument. Combat is a fundamental part of the game. Walking on water isn't. It's easy to look at "combat" and call it equal to "non-combat". But it's not. It's dramatically more important. Handling difficult terrain actually is a fundamental part of combat, and walking on water is a way to handle one commonly found terrain. Flying is another. This isn't the first time I've had to remind you that what you claim are "non-combat" abilities do have tactical combat applications.

These utility powers can help both in and out of combat, and can help avoid combat altogether -- something a [Reserve] feat or a Sneak Attack generally can't do, not unless the combat was trivial.

I've been referring to the Rogue for most of this thread. I've thought the Rogue was better than the Incarnate since way before this thread started. My point wasn't "you can't match a reserve feat, you're incompetent" so much as "you're so far below competence it takes you effort to match a reserve feat" Hopefully you can now recognize that no effort is required, the [Reserve] feat combat competency comes built-in, and doesn't require any particular effort.

eggynack

2018-09-12, 12:28 PM

Nope. False. Wrong.

Tiers are not about the top potential of the class. They are only, ever, about equivalent optimization. The floor, the ceiling and the average.
This is accurate. There's certainly a way to construct the tiers such that you only compare one game object to another, but you still need to perform a broad averaging across builds to get that one game object, so it's really a semantic difference more than anything.

The cleric played as a healbot isn’t T1 because he could have taken DMM instead. The cleric played as a healbot is T1 because he still has vastly more playing power than does a badly built fighter, and because the cleric BUILT as a healbot can pick an awesome spell by accident one day and break the campaign with it on the next.
This, I'm a bit less sure on. Like, to be clear, it's entirely possible that a cleric at this optimization level does well enough by way of comparison to still be called a tier one in this context. That's pretty obviously not universally applicable though, which is the whole point of multiple assessment points. For example, we could build a fighter that spends all its feats not appreciably increasing its power level, which would make it roughly identical to the tier six warrior, even if we build the warrior at the same optimization level. Cause, y'know, their only real decision is feats anyway. Honestly not sure if this is correction or clarification. Leaning towards clarification at a level of about 75-80%.

Lapak

2018-09-12, 12:43 PM

In my experience the "sweet spot" for the game is levels 3 through 12, inclusive -- I'd argue that the tiers should reflect that range, since it's the most commonly played, and also not the most broken.

Where do you put the "mid-level" and "high-level" demarcations?
The question I was asking has been addressed for the purposes of this thread, but to give you my answer on where things break out I tend to think of low/mid/high as 1-5, 6-12, and 13+.

Gnaeus

2018-09-12, 12:48 PM

This, I'm a bit less sure on. Like, to be clear, it's entirely possible that a cleric at this optimization level does well enough by way of comparison to still be called a tier one in this context. That's pretty obviously not universally applicable though, which is the whole point of multiple assessment points. For example, we could build a fighter that spends all its feats not appreciably increasing its power level, which would make it roughly identical to the tier six warrior, even if we build the warrior at the same optimization level. Cause, y'know, their only real decision is feats anyway. Honestly not sure if this is correction or clarification. Leaning towards clarification at a level of about 75-80%.

Low optimization doesn’t equal negative optimization. While it is POSSIBLE that we could build a fighter that was effectively a warrior, that isn’t really the point. A player with poor game mastery could pick weapon focus, not understanding how bad it is, and be better than a warrior. A Roleplayer with little interest in optimization could make a fighter with twf, not caring that that is not optimized, and still be better than a similarly built warrior. A low optimization cleric may not know which spells are good or bad. But he can dump the spells that he finds useless and memorize the spells that work for him.

eggynack

2018-09-12, 01:04 PM

Low optimization doesn’t equal negative optimization. While it is POSSIBLE that we could build a fighter that was effectively a warrior, that isn’t really the point. A player with poor game mastery could pick weapon focus, not understanding how bad it is, and be better than a warrior. A Roleplayer with little interest in optimization could make a fighter with twf, not caring that that is not optimized, and still be better than a similarly built warrior. A low optimization cleric may not know which spells are good or bad. But he can dump the spells that he finds useless and memorize the spells that work for him.
It's an extreme example, but it's not the only example. Broadly speaking, different classes have different floors and ceilings. Turn that cleric into a favored soul, and that fighter into, I dunno, a warblade, and it's entirely possible that the position of these classes relative to each other will switch.

Troacctid

2018-09-12, 03:38 PM

Incarnate has a lot of the same issues as Binder. It's heavily frontloaded and suffers from a lack of clear direction. This makes it very difficult to work with in a single-class context. I think its meldshaping progression is actually more powerful than the Binder's soul binding because of the modularity it offers. Binders have to take their special abilities in prepackaged loadouts; Incarnates can take them a la carte and mix and match to their hearts' content. Meldshaping also offers smoother scaling, where soul binding has sharp spikes and long plateaus. Whenever I try to build a Binder, I often feel like I'm not advancing at all for several levels at a time, whereas an Incarnate build is always getting new binds and shapes and essentia. On the other hand, meldshaping is less powerful than a Warlock's invocations because invocations tend to be much more impactful, even if they're not necessarily as flexible. Incarnate also comes with an annoyingly nerfed chassis, forcing it to do more work to get the same result. Being able to reshape soulmelds is a huge boon, though, and makes a big difference in versatility, even though you can't switch out chakra binds.

I think Incarnate is capable of matching the contributions of something like a Swordsage or a Dragonfire Adept, but doing so requires a greater degree of finesse and system mastery. I have it at a low Tier 3, bordering on Tier 4—call it a 3.4.

Totemist has an easier time of it because its role is better defined and it isn't smacked with the chassis nerf stick for no reason. However, it's also more pigeonholed. The dichotomy kind of mirrors Warlock vs. Dragonfire Adept, actually. I think Totemist ends up being only sliiightly higher than Incarnate just because the pieces fit together a little more easily. Call it 3.2.

I definitely think both classes badly want to multiclass.

Soulborn is a benchmark 5.

One of the things that always stumps me when trying to tier classes is that some classes effectively change tier at different levels. Incarnate and totemist show up in the e6 build competitions frequently, and for a reason: Incarnum classes get access to a lot of their built-in power early, and the ROI in terms of feats and levels is very high at low levels and slopes off as you go up (granted, it's a steeper slope for the Incarnate than the Totemist.)

I'd argue that the Incarnate is a clear, easy T3 at low-mid levels and an equally clear T4 at mid-high levels. A lot of classes that make good dips follow this kind of pattern, e.g. the Factotum. I almost feel that any definitive tier ranking has to take this into account somehow.
Heck, I'd even argue that Incarnate is a solid T2 or even T1 at low enough levels.

ottdmk

2018-09-12, 05:01 PM

It's worth noting that the authors of the book apparently never thought of the ramifications of that feat, because what happens if a Neutral Totemist (or NG Soulborn) takes Incarnate Weapon? Beats the hell out of me. A Neutral Totemist? They'd probably end up with a +1 to +5 Weapon with no alignment based ability.

As for the 2nd part, there's no such animal as a NG Soulborn. A Good Soulborn has to be LG or CG. I've always thought that they should get to choose the alignment of the Meld each time it's Shaped.

This discussion has inspired me to finally post my homebrew Soulborn "fix". (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?568958-2018-Soulborn-quot-fix-quot-Homebrew)

Morphic tide

2018-09-12, 06:02 PM

Cite this. Show me where a Wizard has been called anything other than T1.

You called? Because the Wizard, while not quite as bad as the Artificer (who needs literal months of downtime to actually play at t1), is quite reliant on "spherical cow" level perfected abstractions to seriously outperform Sorcerers. Namely the Magic Mart, something both not assured and actually quite hard to work with properly. The Wizard gets a better spell selection mechanic, yes, but then also has to prepare spells from a barely better selection (because if you're actually playing t1, the Sorcerers are going to be getting the absolute best spells anyways and you have to compete against better endurance, a more easily boosted casting score and not needing to predict enemies ahead of time. Therefor a Wizard exceeding a Sorcerer in active gameplay very nearly must be played to a higher competence, as the difference of raw power is so small and spells can cover so much with so few). The Cleric and Druid, due to universal list access, have a far firmer floor because you can't trap yourself out of specific spells, with the Druid being so absurd in that field that an argument for Druids being t3 without any spellcasting can be made on the strengths of Animal Companions and Wildshape.

Simply put, the power differential is minimal and in the Sorcerer's favor (more slots and an easier-to-boost casting score is more significant than an extra Metamagic feat every four levels, for raw power. Standard action metamagic is more a matter of versatility than power) and the degree of optimization needed to get the versatility difference to actually fully matter is at the point the Sorcerer's easier shenanigans, such as needing a single Psionic Power (a 4th level one with an XP cost for 20-level-reset of 1k XP, at that) to entirely duplicate the Spirit Shaman's casting mechanic... Off the Wiz/Sorc list, and with twice the spells to cast from per day. This is almost certainly better than what the Wizard can do at a similar level of optimization, because this is literally just accelerated retraining payed for with XP instead of GP. Relentlessly abusable, yes, but actually a pretty down-low trick, relative to what the Wizard needs to pull similar shenanigans. Hell, once Limited Wish comes online, it's all-but-explicitly-RAW-legal to use it to replicate Psychic Reformation because of the "Produce any other effect whose power level is in line with the above effects" line meaning that a 4th level power is fairly obviously going to be on the list, because 4th level spells from another list, in a prohibited school, is one of the specifically-available things. And it only increases the XP cost if you redo less than 6 levels!

For comparison, Schrodinger's Wizard involves stuff like Repeated Sanctum Mage's Lucubration, which is an infinite spell loop, being attached to another Repeated Sanctum Spell to swap prepared spells. And this consumes two rounds per spell swapped, while the Psychic Reformation Sorcerer lets you swap feats on top of this and takes 10 minutes for everything. One of the alternatives in Uncanny Forethought eats two feats and only gives a number of spontaneous slots equal to your Intelligence modifier, chosen at the start of the day, with it being a full round action to use anything that isn't under Spell Mastery and lowers the CL by two. Sure, the Wizard can do everything. But it's far easier for the Sorcerer to make up for its versatility disadvantage than it is for the Wizard to make up for its power disadvantage and act upon its full versatility in actual gameplay to outclass the Sorcerer. The margins are too narrow and optimization bands are too wonky to firmly say either is better enough to actually put them in separate tiers. So either both are t1, a laughable proposition given how breakable the Sorcerer is... Or the Magic Mart and high-competence dependent Wizard is t2, because it's sufficiently easy to break and hard to play (the same actually holds true of Artificer, with an added weight of obscene time sinks) that it doesn't exceed the Sorcerer enough at enough optimization levels to actually be in another tier.

---

Going by my above screed regarding breakability, ease of breaking and difficulty of play, this is my recommendation for Incarnum class tiers:

Incarnate: Firmly t3. The floor is very strong (16 Con and you're not going to completely break beyond high-competence play), and it has mechanics that mitigate difficulty of preparations for tasks by letting you swap one utility for another on the spot, with some constraints. Like the Cleric, it's incapable of being permanently broken without egregious build incompetence, while it has a significantly lower difficulty of play in shaping Soulmelds for the day. It floors as a very high t4 and peaks at mid-t3, with the difference between the two being around 40% medium-term play difference, rather than build dependence.

Soulborn: Firmly t5, because you need nearly perfect play and build to actually keep up with the other t4 classes. By technical definition, it'd be on the t4/t5 boundary... But the other t4 classes actually generally are wildly above that, with the ability to be absurdly effective at one thing, while t4 requires you merely be able to meaningfully contribute in one or two ways. Soulborn does that off two or three nearly-perfectly-picked feats, and that much is only because Incarnum is a system with a very strong floor for all it's classes. You literally can't have direct Essentia access, even at Soulborn's level, and fall below t4 in every possible build. The feats alone can get you to t4, by technical definition.

Totemist: Borderline t3/t4, leaning more towards t3 because you can get there mainly through play rather than build, though a lot of the class pressures towards the low-tier Natural Attack spam build, which leaves too little room for utility to have the t3 options active. Due to this weighting towards the floor, it's a pretty close call, though I'll go with t3 because it's ultimately a fairly easy fix with retraining or Psychic Reformation, or even just a good feat pick after a poor build. The abilities are there, the class just de-emphasizes them strongly.

Cosi

2018-09-12, 06:55 PM

Wins by several d6 at the first 10 levels of the game, loses by 1d6 at the last 3 levels? That's a significant win for the Incarnate.

Okay, their best offensive option (that anyone has mentioned) beats a Warmage's zero-effort fallback. Against one target. By a single digit number of d6s. That's a win. But it's not enough of a win to make me care unless you can back it up.

It occurs to me that your damage-vs.-[Reserve] argument also applies to a Warlock, but you're not trying to disqualify Warlock from T3.

Well, this isn't the Warlock thread, so it would be rather off topic for me to be arguing about where they belong. Are you alleging that I have some kind of anti-Incarnate agenda? I'm just confused as to what the point of this argument is supposed to be.

In any case, the Warlock does have other options. It has actual flight at 6th level (coupled with a 200ft range blast), gets animate dead which doubles as a crappy summon before the Wizard gets it, and gets a couple of different BFC effects. Also it gets some Artificer-y shenanigans at high levels. Personally, I'm not sure it's enough, though permanent flight at 6th level (no, airstep sandals do not work the way you think) plus ranged attacks is a pretty neat trick.

Handling difficult terrain actually is a fundamental part of combat, and walking on water is a way to handle one commonly found terrain.

Yes, and if you gave those abilities to allies, or had some combat abilities that could actually win a fight, that would matter. Maneuver into position to deal a single digit number of d6s to one target is not a combat strategy. It's a fallback. If you had some BFC, or some blasting, or minionmancy more impressive than "one zombie" that might matter. But the problem is that you have secondary shticks but no primary shtick. As I've said, if you had it as a Gestalt it's pretty good. But on its own there's nothing to support.

Flying is another.

It would be, if you got flight. But you don't. You get what amounts to slightly better ground maneuverability.

Hopefully you can now recognize that no effort is required, the [Reserve] feat combat competency comes built-in, and doesn't require any particular effort.

A reserve feat is no great ordeal either. And the Warmage has options to back it up. As far as I can tell, your contention is that a back up combat option plus random utility is somehow supposed to be on par with legitimate combat options plus also utility.

Incarnate has a lot of the same issues as Binder. It's heavily frontloaded and suffers from a lack of clear direction.

The Binder isn't frontloaded. Zyrcell is enough to be relevant at mid levels.

Heck, I'd even argue that Incarnate is a solid T2 or even T1 at low enough levels.

Low levels end up doing really bizarre things to balance that are not representative of the rest of the game. Artificers are unplayable garbage because they need to make UMD checks they fail half the time to cast spells with DC 13 that cost gold. Fighters are actually good. The swings from 1st to 6th are bigger than the swings in pretty much the rest of the game.

The Wizard gets a better spell selection mechanic, yes, but then also has to prepare spells from a barely better selection

So first let me preface this by saying that I basically agree that Wizards and Sorcerers are fairly close to equal in practice. But the advantage is pretty clearly in the Wizard's favor. Overall, you seem to be basically ignoring the reality that Wizards get a way faster progression than Sorcerers. For example, take spells known. Yes, the Wizard doesn't get a lot of them. But by the time the Sorcerer gets one spell known of a given level, the Wizard gets as many as the Sorcerer will ever know just from leveling up (less for 1sts and 2nds, more for 6ths and up).

Simply put, the power differential is minimal and in the Sorcerer's favor (more slots and an easier-to-boost casting score

You don't get more slots. A Focused Specialist Wizard gets as many spells per day as you do, and three banned schools is less restrictive than the Sorcerer's spells known. And if you want to claim that Focused Specialist is a bad deal, that means you're admitting you don't actually need the extra slots and would rather have the versatility. While CHA may be easier to boost, INT does a whole lot more for you.

the Sorcerer's easier shenanigans, such as needing a single Psionic Power (a 4th level one with an XP cost for 20-level-reset of 1k XP, at that) to entirely duplicate the Spirit Shaman's casting mechanic

That feels like a kind of dishonest way of stating it. You need to psychic reformation every day, which is far from trivial. Compare that to Spontaneous Divination + Versatile Spellcaster, which is an ACF you'd take anyway and a feat.

Dimers

2018-09-12, 10:01 PM

Totemist, tier 3. They're effective at multiple things and can even (to a degree) swap out which things on a daily basis. Their class features give them the power to expand, too -- incarnum feats can let you optimize for different roles, if you have good essentia. Irrelevant but nice: compared to initiator classes, they're more fun to play and at least as flavorful.

Incarnate, tier 4. Flexibility is good but the abilities they can access are never strong. Few skill points on a crappy list, and melds are expected to make up for that; awful BAB and poor hit points, and the melds are also expected to make up for that. And they just don't. I find them frustrating to build and to play.

Soulborn, tier 5. Clearly much better than a warrior and clearly not as good as a ranger, paladin or rogue. They have little flexibility and little oomph.

Nifft

2018-09-12, 11:33 PM

You called? Because the Wizard, (...) You say some true things, but also some inaccurate things -- like the idea that psychic reformation exists in every game -- I mean, some campaigns lack Psionics entirely.

I think you're right that in play a Sorcerer can be almost as strong as a Wizard, if you catch them at the levels where both have the same top level spell, and if the Sorcerer is built by someone experienced enough with the system to make good level-up choices (or to know how to re-do those choices, and the DM is one who allows the exercise of those options). But all that reasoning requires players who know the system well and then choose to be Sorcerers. In play with non-experts, what I've seen is that the Wizards tend to perform better -- probably because the players try stuff out and see what works, then adapt based on their experience the next day, instead of being tied to their choices for a whole level (or more). I've also seen a bit of bias in players who know the system well towards Wizard rather than Sorcerer.

Personally I do allow psychic reformation (though all XP is paid by the character receiving the effect; if you target yourself with the power you receive a discount) -- and I don't allow Sanctum Spell, so that's a point in favor I guess -- but there are other better tricks which I tend to leverage, and overall the game does seem to favor Wizards even then.

For comparison, Schrodinger's Wizard involves stuff like Repeated Sanctum Mage's Lucubration, which is an infinite spell loop, being attached to another Repeated Sanctum Spell to swap prepared spells. And this consumes two rounds per spell swapped, while the Psychic Reformation Sorcerer lets you swap feats on top of this and takes 10 minutes for everything. One of the alternatives in Uncanny Forethought eats two feats and only gives a number of spontaneous slots equal to your Intelligence modifier, chosen at the start of the day, with it being a full round action to use anything that isn't under Spell Mastery and lowers the CL by two. Sure, the Wizard can do everything. But it's far easier for the Sorcerer to make up for its versatility disadvantage than it is for the Wizard to make up for its power disadvantage and act upon its full versatility in actual gameplay to outclass the Sorcerer. The margins are too narrow and optimization bands are too wonky to firmly say either is better enough to actually put them in separate tiers. So either both are t1, a laughable proposition given how breakable the Sorcerer is... Or the Magic Mart and high-competence dependent Wizard is t2, because it's sufficiently easy to break and hard to play (the same actually holds true of Artificer, with an added weight of obscene time sinks) that it doesn't exceed the Sorcerer enough at enough optimization levels to actually be in another tier.
I dunno, gear for the two seems to strongly favor prepared casters. For example a Runestaff gives a Sorcerer some extra (limited) spells known, and that's great, but it gives a Wizard (limited) spontaneous casting. The prepared caster gets to bypass a major mechanical limitation and gets bonus spells known; the Sorcerer just gets bonus spells known.

Similarly, Pearls of Power allow a prepared caster to re-prepare expended spells. That's a circumvention of a major mechanical limitation. The equivalent for a Sorcerer just gives more slots per day -- no mechanical limitation bypassed, just more of what you already had.

PrCs like Anima Mage or Incantatrix (+ Persist) allow you to use fewer slots to get level-breaking all-day buffs. Technically a Sorcerer could use these too, but Wizard works better with them for a number of reasons -- for example, Incantatrix cares about Spellcraft (which is an Int skill -- and a skill, of which Sorcerers suffer a lack). Persistent spells reward preparation, because you don't need to carry around your all-day buffs in your known spell list.

If you take al 5 levels of the Primal Scholar PrC (Secrets of Xen'drik / Eberron), you can recover an endless number of expended level 5 or lower spells or spell slots. Preparing a bunch of spells and then casting them all day without limit is pretty great. The advantage a Sorcerer could have is using 2x level 5 slots via Versatile Spellcaster, but it's not as good as what the Wizard can do in combo with Uncanny Forethought -- the Wizard either spontaneously casts from her whole book (as a full-round action, with -2 caster level) by leaving one spell slot open for each spell level 1-5 and continues to cast from her whole book all day; or the spells are "solidified" once cast via Uncanny Forethought and then she just recovers them like any other prepared slots, so she's picking once (in combat) then spamming all day without limit, like an Erudite on arcanabolic steroids.

So in summary, it seems like the Wizard has better support from PrCs, feats, and magic equipment. This is in addition to having a (mild) inherent advantage in situations where planning is possible, and a significant advantage at every odd level. You're probably right that the planning advantage is over-sold, but it's still a real advantage in many games, and a lot of other stuff in the game either compounds that advantage or helps Wizards bypass their limitations and gain some of the Sorcerer's advantages.

Okay, their best offensive option (that anyone has mentioned) beats a Warmage's zero-effort fallback. Against one target. By a single digit number of d6s. That's a win. But it's not enough of a win to make me care unless you can back it up. You had wanted me to meet standard X, and now X has been exceeded, so now you don't care about X "unless can back it up"?

I don't think even you know what your goalposts are anymore.

Frankly I doubt that this one obvious no-investment spittle thing is their ~best~ combat option. It's just an obvious one, which happens to exceed the goalposts you'd originally set.

Well, this isn't the Warlock thread, so it would be rather off topic for me to be arguing about where they belong. Are you alleging that I have some kind of anti-Incarnate agenda? I'm just confused as to what the point of this argument is supposed to be. Actually my point was that you had been holding up Warlock as a T3 while putting down something else that seems rather similar to Warlock, so I wanted you to justify the difference in treatment. As you have just now done.

But I am curious why you're so down on the Incarnate. It's not a class which I particularly like, but it doesn't seem nearly as bad as you're trying to paint it.

In any case, the Warlock [I]does have other options. The artificer stuff seems legit, though to be fair that's level 12+ which puts it at the high-to-never end in many games.

A reserve feat is no great ordeal either. And the Warmage has options to back it up. Warmage daily spells are worse than that one Incarnate at-will attacks for a few levels, and they're levels that people will play far more often than your 18+ stuff.

You're talking about backing up a lot -- is your data okay?

OgresAreCute

2018-09-13, 01:51 AM

A solid point in favor of the wizard compared to the sorcerer is that pretty much the entire game expects you to be a wizard. Go look at any odd prestige class for arcane casters. It'll have skill requirements (often knowledges) where a wizard will likely have at least twice as many skill points per level as a sorcerer, it'll have feat requirements (of which wizards get bonus feats for free) and also often require you to be able to cast 3rd level spells, which wizards get one level before sorcerers (unless the sorcerer uses early entry tricks, often considered TO).

Just look at a relatively lax class like Incantatrix. It requires 3rd level spells, meaning sorcerers enter one level after wizards regardless, it requires two feats (one of which a wizard can get for free with their 5th level bonus feat) and three skills: Concentration 4, Arcana 8 and Spellcraft 8. Sorcerers do actually have all 3 of these on their tiny little list, but they'll only have 18 skill points by level 6 if they have +0 int (which is a tertiary skill at best), meaning they need to spend more points on getting int to +1, or go human (which isn't bad, but might not be what you wanted to do). So, even for an easy-to-enter class like Incantatrix, a sorcerer needs to take some special build considerations just to get in, and still get in one level after the wizard, who will fulfill the requirements pretty much automatically.

eggynack

2018-09-13, 04:51 AM

Snip
On top of everything else, you seem to be ignoring the massively increased out of combat utility a reasonably optimized (meaning not this ludicrous top-op spell shuffling) wizard brings to the table. Wizards are simply massively more likely to have access to, say, contact other plane or planar binding. They're even more likely to have powerful lengthy buffs. A 6th level wizard can have, say, four 3rd's a day, so having one of those be heart of water is expensive but not ludicrous. Is a 6th level sorcerer really supposed to spend their exactly one 3rd level slot on heart of water, sacrificing any and all direct combat utility from those slots?

Wizards have a lot of advantages over sorcerers, and very few disadvantages. They don't even really have much of a slot disadvantage. It's been already noted that focused specialist ties it up perfectly well, but even something as low key as elven generalist will keep your top level castings the same on the even levels, with the wizard getting an obvious advantage in these terms on odd levels. Straight up specialist will be most common among weaker players, and that makes this an even bigger advantage. And, of course, sorcerers get no real spontaneity advantage here with their exactly one spell known. Oh, and the wizard has bonus feats for some reason.

Across nearly all levels and optimization levels, the wizard has either a decent or a major advantage over the sorcerer. The sorcerer isn't going to be as far back relative to the wizard as a bard is from a sorcerer, because such is the way the game's power structure looks, with a sizable gap between one and two and a really big gap between two and three. But the gap is there, and it shows up in so many ways.

Lans

2018-09-13, 07:35 AM

An incarnate has some ability to stack effects, like using sighting gloves with dissolving spittle , or using lighting gauntlets with necrocarnum touch, incarnate avatar and the evil radiance ability to get a some points of additional damage.

Incanates can be pretty durable, can get a zombie at level 2, and can definitely get flight at level 9

Andor13

2018-09-13, 09:09 AM

A Neutral Totemist? They'd probably end up with a +1 to +5 Weapon with no alignment based ability.

As for the 2nd part, there's no such animal as a NG Soulborn. A Good Soulborn has to be LG or CG. I've always thought that they should get to choose the alignment of the Meld each time it's Shaped.

Yeah, that was a typo, I meant LG. But it was a really obvious gap in the rules, it makes me wonder if Incarnum was playtested at all before publication, because I can't see even a single decent playtest group failing to spot that.

On topic I would agree with the consensus that Soulborn is a pitiful 5, Incarnate is probably a 4 due to lack of potency, and Totemist is a 3. (My reasoning on the Totemist is that Swordsage is held up as an archetypal 3, and I don't see what he gets that a Totemist doesn't do better.)

Out of curiosity, what do people think of the DSP recasting of Incarnum as Akasha in Pathfinder? The classes (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/variant-magic-rules/akashic-magic/veilweaving-classes/) seem like a solid group of 3s to me with a Craftsman Vizier edging up into tier 1 on the basis that he can do anything an Artificer can do.

Efrate

2018-09-13, 09:55 AM

I glanced through akashic, and like most non casting pf stuff it's stronger than the 3.5 equivilent. i think it irons out quite a few of the issues incarnum has, but I've yet to see it in play. I see pow everywhere but never occult or akashic stuff.

Lapak

2018-09-13, 10:52 AM

Yeah, that was a typo, I meant LG. But it was a really obvious gap in the rules, it makes me wonder if Incarnum was playtested at all before publication, because I can't see even a single decent playtest group failing to spot that.
Another head-scratcher for me is that the book uses 'extreme alignment' and 'alignment extremes' to mean two different things, which I only discovered when I tried to build an Azurin Incarnate for a competition here only to find out they can't qualify for the class.

Luccan

2018-09-13, 11:03 AM

Another head-scratcher for me is that the book uses 'extreme alignment' and 'alignment extremes' to mean two different things, which I only discovered when I tried to build an Azurin Incarnate for a competition here only to find out they can't qualify for the class.

How could they not qualify? Even "always [alignment]" angels and demons are said to have exceptions.

AnimeTheCat

2018-09-13, 11:57 AM

I think the tier placement of Incarnates is dependent on the game they are being played in. By no means do they have the tool kit of a T1 or T2, but they certainly have a more versatile and potentially potent tool kit than a rogue.

Combat damage is not everything, and that goes back to my original statement above, "The tier placement of Incarnates is dependent on the game they are being played in."

With such soulmelds as Theft Gloves, Mage's Spectacles, Truthseeker Goggles, Necrocarnum Touch, Silvertongue Mask, etc. You can have a city slicking, intrigue and subterfuge focused character with adequate or exceedingly adequate competence, comparable to a rogue in the same situation. The next day, when you enact you plan you spent the prior day concocting, you have options such as the ones listed above to aid your team or follow through your plan. With a high UMD check, and consequently a high spellcraft check, you could easily use your actions to foil other spellcasters via damage to force concentration checks or attempt dispel checks from a dispel magic wand. Alternatively, you could bind other soulmelds with different utilitarian combat assistance associated such as Soulspark Familiar and Necrocarnum Circlet for flanking buddies for allies or obsticals for charging melee enemies. There are more too. For instance, Enigma Helm is a non-detection spell that you get from level 1, or the Crystal Helm gets the [Force] descriptor on your melee attacks (something rogues must spend a fair amount of money on, or otherwise be reliant on a spellcaster).

What's more, say you want to be a melee focused incarnate. You can feasibly do that too with the right combination of soulmelds AND you can support your allies at the same time, such as the initiative bonus from bound Bluesteel Bracers, or random Luck Bonus from bound Lucky Dice.

The greatest part of being an incarnate is that in the abscense of any external influence at all (magic from other sources, skill ranks, ability modifiers, other magic items, etc.) You can be competent in nearly every role in the game. Because of this, I say Incarnates are very solidly seated at T3. Fractional tiering enabled, T3.2.

Soulborns are unfortunate. Personally I enjoy them in appropriate games, but they get too little too late and didn't get Paladin style splat love. I guess T5, but I would say a bit higher on T5, just because even if it is late, they do get some nice things that allow them to stand well above a fighter, in my opinion. They are better team assets than fighters, if only even by a little, and bring more versatility to the table by being able to at least slightly change their roles. T5.4

Totemists are, while really cool, I think my least favorite of the meldshapers. They have a shtick, natural weapons, and they dont really deviate too much from that. They have some auxiliary soulmelds, but those typically only enhance mobility, detection methods, and mundane detection avoidance. They are excellent combatants, but they fall behind in terms of versatility and non-combat capability. Solidly T3, but less powerful overall, in my opinion and experience, than an Incarnate. I say T3.4.

Elkad

2018-09-13, 12:47 PM

You know, I feel part of the problem - at least in my case - is I've never seen actually seen a MoI character in use in mid to high level play. 7-15 range.
A totem dip for more arms? Sure. But not something dedicated.

So I'm not even sure how people manage them.
Sure, I've read the guides. But none of them (at least that I've seen) have them put together into sample builds. It's just analysis of melds, with no whole.

What melds do you run? Where are their points in combat? In exploration? In a social? What if you don't know what the plan for the day is? (or the badguys try to kidnap the princess while you are dancing with her and diplomancing the guy you thought was the "evil grand vizier" at the Royal Ball)?

Just reading through a PbP thread with a 12th level Incarnate or something might help.

Gnaeus

2018-09-13, 05:49 PM

It's an extreme example, but it's not the only example. Broadly speaking, different classes have different floors and ceilings. Turn that cleric into a favored soul, and that fighter into, I dunno, a warblade, and it's entirely possible that the position of these classes relative to each other will switch.

You aren’t wrong. But that’s a definitional problem within the tiers. Tier 3s usually have really high floors and 2s have low ones. That’s how we wind up with paradoxes in theory threads like (a gestalt of all Tier 5 classes can wipe the floor with a tier 1 at most levels and optimization points while at the same time not definitionally exceeding T3).

And the resolution there is that functionally, in most games, one tier differences are meaningless. I’m as guilty as anyone even though I keep swearing not to engage in tier discussions about border cases, because ultimately whether Incarnate is low T3 or high T4 never ever matters. You really need 2 tier spread to see the difference (usually, in most games, at most levels, in equivalent optimization). Taken in that lens it works out pretty well.

But still, the point remains. The tiers aren’t about class top potential. They are at best a rough average comparing how classes tend to perform when similarly skilled players sit down at the same table. Which is really the only way they are useful, because loredrake dragonwrought kobolds are a tiny, tiny % of sorcerers, and rating sorcerers as if they weren’t is only helpful for the tiny handful of games that play Tippy style.

Cosi

2018-09-14, 07:45 AM

Similarly, Pearls of Power allow a prepared caster to re-prepare expended spells. That's a circumvention of a major mechanical limitation. The equivalent for a Sorcerer just gives more slots per day -- no mechanical limitation bypassed, just more of what you already had.

Well, Knowstones exist. They're more obscure than Pearls of Power, but there are magic items out there that help the Sorcerer with their versatility issue. The Sorcerer probably comes out slightly ahead here, because the items have the same price for a given level, but the Sorcerer is farther behind on spells known than the Wizard is on spells per day (though that same point undermines the Sorcerer's advantage).

You had wanted me to meet standard X, and now X has been exceeded, so now you don't care about X "unless [I] can back it up"?

No, I said you barely could meet standard X, and that was proof of your inadequacy. Congratulations, you have an ability about as good as Eldritch Blast. How does the rest of the Incarnate stack up to the rest of the Warlock? Let's start with "one zombie" versus "animate dead at an earlier level than the Wizard" or "airstep sandals" versus "actual flight".

Frankly I doubt that this one obvious no-investment spittle thing is their ~best~ combat option. It's just an obvious one, which happens to exceed the goalposts you'd originally set.

Then what is their best option? How does it compare to the Warlock kiting and dropping BFC from out of range? How does it compare to equal-level strikes from a Warblade?

But I am curious why you're so down on the Incarnate. It's not a class which I particularly like, but it doesn't seem nearly as bad as you're trying to paint it.

Compare it to the other classes in the tier. A Warblade is about the equal of a caster in combat, with minimal out of combat options. A Warmage is basically a Beguiler with a worse starting spell list, which matters very little because a big chunk of the Beguiler's power comes from expanding their list. So when the Incarnate walks in with combat options that amount to "maybe it's as good as a reserve feat" and "stacking +1 bonus", equivalence would seem to require non-combat options on par with a caster. Like a soulmeld that let you scry or teleport or plane shift, or full animate dead, or any of the other things people call "campaign breakers". But it doesn't get that. It gets things like "maybe flight". You get big skill bonuses, but you have worse skills, so the impact is substantially lessened.

I also think that utility is just fundamentally less important than offensive power for several reasons. First, combat power has more measurable standards that can be applied to it than non-combat power does. There are monsters in the MM with assigned CRs to which equal level characters can be compared, but there's no standard for when you need flight or water walk. Second, people treat "combat" as a much smaller thing than it actually is. There are a dozen or more CR 10 monsters in just the MM. It's not clear to me that beating six of those (or whatever) isn't more versatile than having a couple of different non-combat options. Third, it's dramatically easier to get by without non-combat abilities than it is to get by without combat ones. In my experience, it's substantially easier to roleplay your way through a non-combat encounter without relevant abilities than it is to roleplay your way through a combat encounter without them. All these things combine to make me skeptical about the power of a package that is mostly minor utility abilities.

If you had something like a Warblade//Incarnate Gestalt, I would absolutely consider that equal to a Sorcerer in a way I would not for a Warblade//Rogue or Warblade//Barbarian even though I think Rogue and Barbarian are probably better classes on their own. But the Incarnate simply can't keep up in combat, and I think that a character who can't do that caps out at Tier Four (and a character who can probably has a floor at Tier Three).

Warmage daily spells are worse than that one Incarnate at-will attacks for a few levels, and they're levels that people will play far more often than your 18+ stuff.

Warmages also have access to all the list expansion tools that the other fixed list casters do. Honestly, they probably belong in Tier Two just on the back of Apprentice (Spellcaster). But even discounting that, the fact that their abilities are AoE means they'll often end up dealing more damage.

often require you to be able to cast 3rd level spells, which wizards get one level before sorcerers (unless the sorcerer uses early entry tricks, often considered TO).

This right here is the big point. More spells per day is nice, but for almost half the game the Wizard has higher level spells. That on its own makes the class better.

I think the tier placement of Incarnates is dependent on the game they are being played in. By no means do they have the tool kit of a T1 or T2, but they certainly have a more versatile and potentially potent tool kit than a rogue.

This is trivially true, and no they don't. An optimized Rogue deals enough damage to kill an equal-level enemy in one round with counters to most anti-Rogue abilities fairly cheaply. If the Incarnate can do a similar thing in combat, or has equivalently powerful non-combat utility.

"The tier placement of Incarnates is dependent on the game they are being played in."

Yeah, and I bet Wizards really suck if the entire campaign takes place in a dead magic zone. Expected value is what matters here.

The greatest part of being an incarnate is that in the abscense of any external influence at all (magic from other sources, skill ranks, ability modifiers, other magic items, etc.) You can be competent in nearly every role in the game.

Well, every role aside from the one that is in the game's name (Dragons) and has multiple entire books dedicated to challenges for it -- combat. But sure, when your DM calls for a skill check, you can be good at that skill check if you anticipated it in advance.

Troacctid

2018-09-14, 12:18 PM

Incarnates have stuff to do in combat. They get strong defensive abilities, reliable touch-based damage, a few buffs, and some minor minionmancy. In my experience, it holds up very well at lower levels and then drops in relative effectiveness over time while still being reasonably competitive with a class like Warlock. That baseline competency in combat is then supplemented with some solid utility effects.

Lans

2018-09-14, 12:33 PM

The incarnate has 2 advantages is its versatility, which lets it almost be the T5 class that it wants to be for the day. It lets you be a fighter one day, and the next you can be an expert. Or you could even be one of the aura classes if you want.

The other being that it can be extremely tanky.

I wanted to go into more detail but i have to work

Troacctid

2018-09-14, 01:10 PM

Cosi

2018-09-14, 08:20 PM

The thing is, unlike vestiges, soulmelds are super granular, so you don't need to dedicate yourself completely to one role at a time. You can mix and match. You don't have to wait until the next day to readjust either—you can easily switch between roles on the fly with a single swift action. That's one of the great things about incarnum.

Unlike soulmelds, Zceryll. You can mix and match all you want. I'll be over here, making simulacra (go go gadget Mirror Mephit!). Or just generally being better than anything you can do, because that particular option is admittedly stupid.

Lans

2018-09-15, 01:08 AM

Unlike soulmelds, Zceryll. You can mix and match all you want. I'll be over here, making simulacra (go go gadget Mirror Mephit!). Or just generally being better than anything you can do, because that particular option is admittedly stupid.

I don't think that works it refuses to cast any spells that would cost it XP, or to use any spell-like abilities that would cost XP if they were spells.

Then what is their best option? How does it compare to the Warlock kiting and dropping BFC from out of range? How does it compare to equal-level strikes from a Warblade?
.
At level 4 the incarnate can bind lightning gauntlets, and shape mantle of flame, incarnate soul, and bloodwar gauntlets. Assuming a law incarnate he would have an attack bonus 1 higher than the warblade, and deal an extra+3d6+1 damage, which is more damage than most 2nd level manuevers.

Mantle of flame is pretty comparable to fiery riposte and holocaust cloak. 4d6 as an immediate action after getting hit vs 3d6 when hit.

At 5th level the manuevers pull ahead a little bit when they start doing 4d6 damage and the incarnate just gets a point of damage, at 6th the incarnate gets another dice to the lightning gauntlets so he is now dealing an extra 4d6+2.

At 7th level the the warblade strikes are still mostly doing an extra 4d6, though one does double normal damage with a successful skill check.

At 9th the warblade gets access to a manuever that can do an extra 6d6 and the incarnate is doing maybe 1 or 2 damage more. If the incarnate took the expanded soulmeld feat it could close the gap in damage to a half a point of damage.

At 11th the warblade can get a manuever that can deal an extra 35 points of damage on a charge and the rest are worse as far as damage goes. The incarnate goes to maybe 6d6+4 so about 10 points behind one manuever and a few points ahead the rest.

At 13th the incarnate gets jack, and the warblade gets +12/14d6 manuevers.

So from 4-12 the incarnate keeps up on the damage front, not counting boosts and stances and I didn't evaluate the rider effects at all. Though if I used an evil incarnate the damage might be a little better, and it occurs to me I could of looked up the incarnate by numbers thread

Cosi

2018-09-15, 06:35 AM

I don't think that works it refuses to cast any spells that would cost it XP, or to use any spell-like abilities that would cost XP if they were spells.

While Zceryll's Summon Alien uses the summon monster list, the effect isn't actually summon monster. Your summons can use SLAs that would cost XP just fine.

At level 4 the incarnate can bind lightning gauntlets, and shape mantle of flame, incarnate soul, and bloodwar gauntlets. Assuming a law incarnate he would have an attack bonus 1 higher than the warblade, and deal an extra+3d6+1 damage, which is more damage than most 2nd level manuevers.

The characters have different stat priorities and weapon proficiencies. Between a higher STR and and better weapon, I think the Warblade is probably still ahead. Also, he still gets defensive maneuvers like the Diamond Mind counters.

At 5th level the manuevers pull ahead a little bit when they start doing 4d6 damage and the incarnate just gets a point of damage, at 6th the incarnate gets another dice to the lightning gauntlets so he is now dealing an extra 4d6+2.

white raven tactics and iron heart surge live at 5th level. What does the Incarnate get that's remotely comparable?

So from 4-12 the incarnate keeps up on the damage front, not counting boosts and stances and I didn't evaluate the rider effects at all. Though if I used an evil incarnate the damage might be a little better, and it occurs to me I could of looked up the incarnate by numbers thread

It's not really keeping up in the damage front (and you can forget about it if the Warblade is building for damage boosts), and those riders and boosts are important. white raven tactics isn't something you should just be discounting.

Lans

2018-09-15, 09:15 AM

While Zceryll's Summon Alien uses the summon monster list, the effect isn't actually summon monster. Your summons can use SLAs that would cost XP just fine. As long as its still a summoning effect then the text would still apply

The characters have different stat priorities and weapon proficiencies. Between a higher STR and and better weapon, I think the Warblade is probably still ahead. Also, he still gets defensive maneuvers like the Diamond Mind counters.

The incarnates strength can easily be the same, the better weapon is maybe going to be a point of damage and a slightly higher crit. The incarnate can get various immunities, or senses and has mantle of flame.

white raven tactics and iron heart surge live at 5th level. What does the Incarnate get that's remotely comparable?

Absolutely nothing, but I was only comparing strikes

It's not really keeping up in the damage front (and you can forget about it if the Warblade is building for damage boosts), and those riders and boosts are important. white raven tactics isn't something you should just be discounting.
I was just comparing his abilities to the strikes as that was what you asked for. The rider effects are important, but they are a less black and white comparison and not some thing I wanted to get into at this point.

I think the incarnate is at least a half to full tier behind the warblade even with taking its ability to respec into account, so my goal was just to see if it can get into the rough ballpark of a warblade.

Nifft

2018-09-15, 04:29 PM

Well, Knowstones exist. They're more obscure than Pearls of Power, but there are magic items out there that help the Sorcerer with their versatility issue. The Sorcerer probably comes out slightly ahead here, because the items have the same price for a given level, but the Sorcerer is farther behind on spells known than the Wizard is on spells per day (though that same point undermines the Sorcerer's advantage). Knowstones don't exist in a lot of games, along with the majority of Dragon content. It's not really a good match for Pearl of Power, though -- the pearl removes more than one major Wizard mechanical limit, since you can pick which spell you re-prep after you learn more info about whatever threat you're facing. If a Knowstone allowed you to re-set which spell it granted each day, that might be comparable.

In either case, not needing Dragon content would be another Wizard advantage.

No, I said you barely could meet standard X, and that was proof of your inadequacy. Congratulations, you have an ability about as good as Eldritch Blast. 3d6 at level 1 is actually better than 1d6 at level 1, and 4d6 at level 3 is actually better than 2d6 at level 3. So good job setting a standard that's easy to beat -- I guess that makes the inadequacy yours?

Anyway it does sound like you're conceding the point that Incarnates are competent at combat. Let me know if you still have concerns; otherwise I'll assume we're done here.

Then what is their best option? Ask someone who plays the thing. I was just here to correct an inaccuracy, and with your concession right above this, that's been accomplished.

As long as its still a summoning effect then the text would still apply

Zceryll has some issues with interpretation because the text is too vague. Either:

- The Summon Monster mechanics are meant to apply, and summoned aliens must abide by all the regular restrictions (short duration for the summon; summon's spells durations cut short at the end of the effect; aliens can't summon more monsters or teleport; no way to force XP spell effects).

- The Summon Monster mechanics are not meant to apply, and the summoned aliens exist with no duration, nor with any particular reason to obey the foolhardy Binder who allowed these uncontrolled horrors into the mortal world. The aliens may pretend to obey the Binder until enough of them are present to overwhelm the PCs and use their tender humanoid bodies as egg-warmers.

One of these would tend to change the game's genre from heroic fantasy into fantasy horror. That might be awesome, but it's probably not supposed to be the default.

I've seen decent houserules on Zceryll but they probably don't belong in this thread.

Cosi

2018-09-15, 05:04 PM

As long as its still a summoning effect then the text would still apply

No, those rules are specific to the Summoning spell descriptor. Compare the description of the Summon special ability (which seems most relevant) to that of the Summoning subschool. The latter describes a number of restrictions, including "no using summoning abilities" and "no using abilities that cost XP". The former explicitly includes one restriction, but not the other, which indicates that it is defining its own set of restrictions which does not include "no using abilities that cost XP". Obviously neither comparison is perfect, but I don't find the argument that the restriction about XP costs applies.

The incarnates strength can easily be the same, the better weapon is maybe going to be a point of damage and a slightly higher crit. The incarnate can get various immunities, or senses and has mantle of flame.

If the Incarnate's stats are all the same, it's specializing pretty hard into melee for a class that is supposed to be versatile. As is its skill bonuses are usually going to be around the same as a Rogue's (because it won't have ranks), and while it can swap, the Rogue gets more at any given time.

I was just comparing his abilities to the strikes as that was what you asked for.

The comparison to a Warblade using strikes includes other things. That's why I asked about the character, not the abilities.

3d6 at level 1 is actually better than 1d6 at level 1

1d6 + INT. And 1st level gives you all kinds of weird results. The Artificer is straight trash at 1st level because it can't make the UMD checks to use its items. That doesn't seem to be a mark against them, so I can't really see outsized performance at 1st level being a mark for the Incarnate. Lots of things scale weirdly at the bottom. And for a feat, that Warmage could have color spray or sleep.

Anyway it does sound like you're conceding the point that Incarnates are competent at combat. Let me know if you still have concerns; otherwise I'll assume we're done here.

No, I haven't. But it does seem like it's not worth talking to you about it, because you seem to have forgotten that I already admitted the class works better at low levels, because you keep saying "look at 1st level" like it's a point that matters. Fighters are good at 1st level.

But I suppose I should make it explicit that I am not conceding, and you are simply continuing your habit of willful misinterpretation of other people's posts in favor of your position. And on something that was basically a tangent to begin with. My question has always been why a class that is less effective in combat than the Rogue is out of it, and less effective out of combat than the Rogue is in it, should rank higher than the Rogue simply for getting to not be level appropriate in different ways each day.

Zceryll has some issues with interpretation because the text is too vague.

Zceryll's issues aren't worse than the Factotums. In many cases they're exactly the same. The duration question is pretty much the same as the IP stacking one, and no one wants to resolve that by declaring that Factotums don't get IP. And honestly, the simulacrum thing is another tangent. I think it works, but even in the post where I made the original claim I admitted it's kind of stupid and cheesy and not necessary to the power of the vestige being higher than anything the Incarnate does.

Lans

2018-09-15, 05:29 PM

If the Incarnate's stats are all the same, it's specializing pretty hard into melee for a class that is supposed to be versatile. As is its skill bonuses are usually going to be around the same as a Rogue's (because it won't have ranks), and while it can swap, the Rogue gets more at any given time.

The comparison to a Warblade using strikes includes other things. That's why I asked about the character, not the abilities.

True, I think the versatility of it, and the binder maybe overstated, but its non melee option is a ranged touch attack so its not to big of an opportunity cost

If you want to make a warblade I can make an incarnate and we can compare.

1d6 + INT. And 1st level gives you all kinds of weird results. The Artificer is straight trash at 1st level because it can't make the UMD checks to use its items. That doesn't seem to be a mark against them, so I can't really see outsized performance at 1st level being a mark for the Incarnate. Lots of things scale weirdly at the bottom. And for a feat, that Warmage could have color spray or sleep.

I think he was comparing it to a warlocks eldritch blast

Efrate

2018-09-16, 12:25 PM

to be fair zycrell binders are t2, non zycrell binder is t4 I believe? comparing a t3/4 to a t2 always going to be slanted in favor of t2.

Cosi

2018-09-16, 07:03 PM

to be fair zycrell binders are t2, non zycrell binder is t4 I believe? comparing a t3/4 to a t2 always going to be slanted in favor of t2.

The Binder is listed as Tier Three without qualification. I think that's probably correct. While summon monster provides a lot of utility, it's not as good as people tend to think. Thanks to the +2 Binding feat you end up with better summons than an equal level Sorcerer, but a Sorcerer relying on summon monster is missing out on a lot of possible power.

Nifft

2018-09-16, 08:36 PM

1d6 + INT. And 1st level gives you all kinds of weird results. The Artificer is straight trash at 1st level because it can't make the UMD checks to use its items. That doesn't seem to be a mark against them, so I can't really see outsized performance at 1st level being a mark for the Incarnate. Lots of things scale weirdly at the bottom. And for a feat, that Warmage could have color spray or sleep. Uh, your previous goalpost was Warlock's eldritch blast. Before that, it was Warmage with a [Reserve] feat. All of them have been beaten.

So, now you're trying to move the goal to Warmage daily spells?

No, just stop. You're blatantly wrong, and you've run me out of patience for your shenanigans.

No, I haven't. But it does seem like it's not worth talking to you about it, because you seem to have forgotten (...) you are simply continuing your habit of willful misinterpretation of other people's posts in favor of your position. Dude. Every other post you seem to deliberately forget which standard you had wanted this low-T3 class to meet. It's certainly not worth continuing the conversation when you try to retroactively change your own benchmark.

It's weird that you're being so obviously dishonest about this. It isn't subtle, and you're not fooling anyone by flaming out at the point where you've been caught more than thrice with your hand in the rhetorical cookie jar.

You are currently attempting to misrepresent your own post. And blaming me for it, and then trying to label me as dishonest because you can't admit that your original goal-line has been far exceeded. Dude. Grow some integrity.

And on something that was basically a tangent to begin with. Incarnate tier ranking is actually not a tangent in this thread. Your thoughts on the Factotum are tangents, but this Incarnate stuff is solidly on topic.

My question has always been why a class that is less effective in combat than the Rogue is out of it, and less effective out of combat than the Rogue is in it, should rank higher than the Rogue simply for getting to not be level appropriate in different ways each day. That's never been your question. You've been harping on combat effectiveness for several pages now -- unsuccessfully, it turns out -- so I guess you'd prefer to pretend that never happened?

It's unfortunate that you didn't lead with this, because this honestly sounds like a much more interesting and realistic tier test for a daily re-spec like the Incarnate... and you've already flamed out of the conversation.

Well, that's fine. The rest of us can have the conversation without you.

I think he was comparing it to a warlocks eldritch blast You are correct, though it was actually what Cosi's previous post had used as the comparison, which I quoted. Here it is just for posterity:

Congratulations, you have an ability about as good as Eldritch Blast.

@Cosi -- “If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.” ― Mark Twain

to be fair zycrell binders are t2, non zycrell binder is t4 I believe? comparing a t3/4 to a t2 always going to be slanted in favor of t2. Regular Binder is T3, though it's mechanically lacking from levels 4-7 or so as a T3. Above level 8 what I've seen is a significant ability to contribute.

Zcyrell can bump the Binder up to T2, depending on the interpretation of the Summon Alien ability -- though I think many common interpretations do qualify for T2.

Not all campaigns use web content, though, and not all home games will import FR content.

Cosi

2018-09-16, 09:14 PM

Nifft has accused me of misresenting my position and moving the goalposts. Let's look at where my position started, and what goalposts I initially presented.

Here's the first post I made in this thread:

People keep telling me the Incarnate is good, but I don't believe them. All it really does is get very large skill bonuses. But very large skill bonuses aren't all that useful, and its options in combat are pretty anemic, particularly at high levels. Apparently you're supposed to rely on dissolving spittle, but it's not really all that impressive. At low levels it's fine because you can beat the essentia curve and do four or five dice of acid damage at low levels. But at high levels it's basically a reserve feat, except you're capped at a single digit number of uses per day (that appears to be wrong, apparently I was looking at a weird source, it's still not great). Compare that to a Rogue or a Beguiler, who gets passably large skill bonuses, but also has the ability to do relevant things in combat.

Notice how I explicitly call for a comparison to the Rogue (Nifft has called my attempts to compare to the Rogue more recently shifting the goalposts), explicitly mention that the Incarnate performs well at low levels (Nifft has repeatedly attempted to use low level comparisons as a gotcha), and mention reserve feats as a sneer against dissolving spittle rather than any standard of competence (which would be necessary for Nifft's claim that I have moved the goalposts for competence to hold).

Here's the first post where I make some mechanical analysis comparing combat output:

The Rogue is way better than the Incarnate, unless there's something huge I'm missing. The difference between the Rogue's +10 to Climb and the Incarnate's +20 to Climb is not very big, but the difference between the Rogue's ability to deal 40d6 damage per round and the Incarnate's ability to deal 15d6 damage per round is. I just don't see what the killer app for the Incarnate is supposed to be. Skill bonuses are unimpressive, their damage isn't really big enough to matter, and they don't have very much else that I know of.

Notice the references to the Rogue and the lack of references to Warlocks, Reserve Feats, or Warmages. It looks an awful lot like the goalposts I originally presented were based on the Rogue. I also made several other posts about the Rogue (to which Nifft responded) on the first page. It's not like he shouldn't be aware this was the comparison I was looking at -- he engaged with posts based on that comparison!

Here's another post from the first page of this thread:

I don't understand how you can say that makes them better than the Rogue. The Rogue is roughly as effective in combat as the Incarnate is out of it (probably more), roughly as effective out of combat as the Incarnate is in it (again, probably more), and also gets UMD. Given that combat is a much bigger part of D&D than non-combat, and that it's much to use roleplaying to mitigating weak non-combat abilities than weak combat ones, I just don't see that making any sense.

Compare that to the claim I'm making in my most recent post about the Incarnate:

My question has always been why a class that is less effective in combat than the Rogue is out of it, and less effective out of combat than the Rogue is in it, should rank higher than the Rogue simply for getting to not be level appropriate in different ways each day.

Or this post from the intervening pages:

I've been referring to the Rogue for most of this thread. I've thought the Rogue was better than the Incarnate since way before this thread started. My point wasn't "you can't match a reserve feat, you're incompetent" so much as "you're so far below competence it takes you effort to match a reserve feat". All the Rogue has to do to match the damage output of a Reserve Feat is trigger Sneak Attack on one round out of every N where N is the number of attacks he gets (so probably once a combat).

Those seem like awfully similar arguments. Where are the goalposts moving between those two posts? Where exactly was the point where I abandoned the Rogue as a comparison?

Here's a post where I explicitly state that I don't consider beating a reserve feat impressive;

And this is relative to a Reserve Feat I remind you. Beating it by a die or two at some levels is not impressive. If the Warmage is casting actual spells, you lose as soon as he gets second level spells or hits more than on target.

Here's another comparison I made to the Rogue:

Dissolving Spittle is less damage per round than Sneak Attack is on one attack, and a competent Rogue gets half a dozen attacks.

It's not like these are posts Nifft might have missed. Most of them are either replies to him, posts he replied to, or both. He opted to engage with the points about reserve feats rather than the ones about Rogues. That's fine, and it resulted in a conversation that focused more on reserve feats than Rogues. But to do that and then claim that when I make the same points about Rogues that I made on the first page is "shifting the goalposts" is absurd.

Troacctid

2018-09-17, 11:27 AM

Cosi

2018-09-17, 11:38 AM

I'd happily rank Rogues closer to Incarnate if I thought they could actually reliably put up the damage output you ascribe to them. But the fact is, most Rogues won't reliably have sneak attack on every hit without exposing their squishy bodies to melee combat. Most Rogues will flounder against sneak-immune enemies (which are very common). Most Rogues will be targeting normal AC for like two, maybe three attacks, with an unimpressive to-hit. Overcoming those drawbacks takes a relatively high level of optimization.

90% of what the Flask Rogue uses is core, and a lot of it is easy to pick up in play. It's not as hard as people seem to think to figure out that "lots of damage on each attack" and "lots of attacks" are a good combo. And, yes, you won't get sneak attack every attack. But making a full attack with sneak attack round one is more damage than an Incarnate will put out over the course of most fights, and that's easy to do. People can and do figure out the Flask Rogue in play, and when they do it's not hard to switch from "melee TWF" to "ranged TWF".

And there's optimization required to play an Incarnate too. Yes, you just take soulmelds and put points in them. But figuring out how to allocate Chakra binds and magic items, how to distribute essentia, and what alignment to pick is far from trivial. And the class's playstyle is substantially harder to learn. All you need to do to make a Flask Rogue is know how the mechanical pieces fit together. The Incarnate's playstyle requires you to balance choices from a selection of weak abilities, which relies pretty heavily on having a good game sense to avoid getting caught with your pants down. That's much harder to learn.

Troacctid

2018-09-17, 12:16 PM

90% of what the Flask Rogue uses is core, and a lot of it is easy to pick up in play. It's not as hard as people seem to think to figure out that "lots of damage on each attack" and "lots of attacks" are a good combo. And, yes, you won't get sneak attack every attack. But making a full attack with sneak attack round one is more damage than an Incarnate will put out over the course of most fights, and that's easy to do. People can and do figure out the Flask Rogue in play, and when they do it's not hard to switch from "melee TWF" to "ranged TWF".
You can do some nice damage on a full sneak attack in the first round if you win initiative and the enemy's not immune to it and you have the right feats. And melee vs. ranged TWF come with different sets of required feats, so it actually is pretty hard to switch from one to the other. You're probably not going to have Quick Draw or Rapid Shot just lying around.

And there's optimization required to play an Incarnate too. Yes, you just take soulmelds and put points in them. But figuring out how to allocate Chakra binds and magic items, how to distribute essentia, and what alignment to pick is far from trivial. And the class's playstyle is substantially harder to learn. All you need to do to make a Flask Rogue is know how the mechanical pieces fit together. The Incarnate's playstyle requires you to balance choices from a selection of weak abilities, which relies pretty heavily on having a good game sense to avoid getting caught with your pants down. That's much harder to learn.
Everything you need for Incarnate is in one place and available regardless of build, and if your meld selection ends up being weak, you can switch it out the next day, which is something you're actively encouraged to do by the class itself. The only real trap is Incarnate Weapon, and even Incarnate Weapon can hold up well enough if you pair it with synergistic melds.

And there actually are some legit strong soulmelds, like Lucky Dice, Astral Vambraces, Mage's Spectacles, Airstep Sandals, Cerulean Sandals, and Vitality Belt.

AmberVael

2018-09-17, 12:38 PM

Incarnate's offensive options have plenty of drawbacks of their own. Dissolving Spittle is a standard action, single target effect. It has a measly 30 foot range, is subject to spell resistance and less importantly, acid resistance. Its damage is merely passable if you max it out, and maxing it out devours your essentia. And there's just not much else to it - its like Eldritch Blast, but without the ability to get essences, blast shapes, or other options to optimize it.
Going for weapons ends up looking kinda similar, in that you can get your basic statistics acceptable but without anything to add to it to make it exceptional. You're not getting cool things like maneuvers.

So... I'm of the opinion that Incarnum can contribute to combat, but not well. Its not an area they shine in. Thankfully its not the only thing they're supposed to do, so its not like being meh at it leaves them sobbing like monk.

Cosi

2018-09-17, 12:43 PM

You can do some nice damage on a full sneak attack in the first round if you win initiative and the enemy's not immune to it and you have the right feats.

And if you buy a Ring of Blinking, you get Sneak Attack every round. Beating the things that "counter" Rogue is a matter of buying a couple of useful magic items. Even ignoring that, only getting Sneak Attack half the time is still more damage in the first round than the Incarnate does in most entire fights.

And melee vs. ranged TWF come with different sets of required feats, so it actually is pretty hard to switch from one to the other. You're probably not going to have Quick Draw or Rapid Shot just lying around.

Why would you ever take Quick Draw? Sleight of Hand does everything you would need it to anyway.

Everything you need for Incarnate is in one place

You know, as apposed to the Rogue, which relies on core items and a core feat.

if your meld selection ends up being weak, you can switch it out the next day, which is something you're actively encouraged to do by the class itself.

Yes, at the penalty of any given selection being dramatically worse than a specialist. Which means that if you don't have the skill to make good selections -- and that is a skill, and it's one that you can't just pick up from guides or advice -- you end up with powers that match up poorly to your daily encounters. If you picked the wrong skill soulmelds for a social encounter, how are you supposed to learn from that to pick the right soulmelds for a combat encounter?

Lucky Dice

Hahahaha. It's a +1 bonus. It'll take a double digit number of rolls for that to be statistically significantly different from zero. And you have to activate it. If it was permanent and it automatically gave the bonus to everything instead of needing you to roll well (hey Nifft: guess what you forgot to mention) and essentia improved the bonus, then I would call this good. As is, no way.

Astral Vambraces,

That's a web enhancement soulmeld, which is substantially more obscure than anything the Flask Rogue uses, and undermines your claim that everything is in one place. The DR is a good defense at low levels though. It does expire pretty quickly, as by mid or high levels pretty much every enemy that does damage is either going to be armed with a magic weapon, or have the "natural weapons count as magic for beating DR" passive.

Mage's Spectacles

The UMD bonus is smaller than actually investing in the skill past low levels, and you don't get UMD as a class skill. If you want to invest cross-class you're investing most of your skill points which is killing the daily respec that is supposed to be so valuable. Honestly, I think this is more valuable to classes like the Rogue who can pick it up as a better version of Skill Focus.

Airstep Sandals

It's fine, but it's not flight. If it was flight, I would totally agree that it's a big deal. But the real effect is a somewhat higher speed with somewhat better mobility. Hardly a big deal.

Cerulean Sandals

Walking on water at 1st level is a unique ability, but it hardly seems impressive. What does it let you do, exactly? Beat enemies who can't swim or make ranged attacks which are near a body of water and can't retreat outside your range? That's a narrow niche, and it doesn't help the rest of your party at all. The bind effect is pretty cool, but it looks to me like once you've used your very limited teleporting, you lose the entire soulmeld for the day (it "unshapes", which I think means "gone", but I don't remember the terminology exactly). Actually, what happens if it unshapes with essentia invested? I assume you get it back, but if you don't that's a big hit.

Vitality Belt.

The extra tankiness is nice, but it locks up your essentia as you take damage, which is another hit to the class's versatility.

jindra34

2018-09-17, 02:24 PM

Nifft

2018-09-17, 02:44 PM

Nifft has accused me of misresenting my position and moving the goalposts. Let's look at where my position started, and what goalposts I initially presented.

Congrats, you've moved the goalposts so many times, you can find six of them in the same place.

But I can find four other places where you tried to move them, repeatedly.

If I cite examples of these, will you stop trying to turn the thread into such an incivil train-wreck?

(hey Nifft: guess what you forgot to mention) Go ahead, dig yourself deeper by telling me what you think I forgot.

I'd happily rank Rogues closer to Incarnate if I thought they could actually reliably put up the damage output you ascribe to them. But the fact is, most Rogues won't reliably have sneak attack on every hit without exposing their squishy bodies to melee combat. Most Rogues will flounder against sneak-immune enemies (which are very common). Most Rogues will be targeting normal AC for like two, maybe three attacks, with an unimpressive to-hit. Overcoming those drawbacks takes a relatively high level of optimization. That's true.

Rogue is pretty good when you can full-attack with TWF + flanking, but that's not going to happen every combat, and as you point out a lot of threats are going to be immune to sneak attack starting at low levels.

Troacctid

2018-09-17, 03:11 PM

And if you buy a Ring of Blinking, you get Sneak Attack every round. Beating the things that "counter" Rogue is a matter of buying a couple of useful magic items. Even ignoring that, only getting Sneak Attack half the time is still more damage in the first round than the Incarnate does in most entire fights.

Why would you ever take Quick Draw? Sleight of Hand does everything you would need it to anyway.

You know, as apposed to the Rogue, which relies on core items and a core feat.
Ring of Blinking is a 16th level item. Reliably lifting an item as a free action with Sleight of Hand requires a DC 30 check with a -20 penalty and is subject to DM discretion. Which core items bypass sneak attack immunity?

Cosi

2018-09-17, 03:47 PM

So one thing people don't seem to get about Incarnum is that Essentia is the least consumable/most renewable resource. Also unless you horrible screw up an Incarnate (such as deciding to spend all your feats on doing something silly like grappling or such) you can almost re-build yourself daily, and while yes your ceiling is fairly low, its also fairly easy to reach. So we have something with high functioning tier 4 options and a lot of flexibility day in day out changes. Where does that put it? I'm not good at that choice, but it seems similar to sorcerer versus wizard.

You're not nearly as flexible as a Wizard is, and your options are really, really weak. The Incarnate requires substantially more skill in choosing the correct options than does a Wizard. Just grabbing a BFC effect in your top spell level is enough to make a functional Wizard in combat. The same is not true for the Incarnate. You have to be much better at evaluating likely challenges to produce an effective character as an Incarnate, and you have a much smaller ability to hedge your bets, and you don't have the Wizard's divination suite.

Congrats, you've moved the goalposts so many times, you can find six of them in the same place.

The first goalposts and the current goalposts are in the same place. They didn't move. You may have misundersood some posts, and if you'd like to identify them I'm happy to clarify. But my position has not changed over the course of this thread.

If I cite examples of these, will you stop trying to turn the thread into such an incivil train-wreck?

It seems to me that you're the one turning it into a trainwreck. You ignored my primary line of argument, then accused me of shifting the goalposts when I continued to espouse it. If you would like to point to the times you think I tried to move the goalposts, I certainly think that would be more useful for you than continuing to rant about how I'm derailing the thread. More useful still would be substantive arguments.

Go ahead, dig yourself deeper by telling me what you think I forgot.

The duration on lucky dice. You also make a comment that's ambiguous about where the bonus applies. Ordinarily I'd give someone the benefit of the doubt on that one, but none of your posts bother to name the soulmeld in question, so it looks an awful lot like an intentional attempt to obscure your argument. Of course, you're going to reply that clearly I only thought you forgot the "roll a 7 to get all bonuses" part, and clearly you didn't because you said "or" and clearly I'm moving the goalposts, so let me be clear -- no, that's not what happened. If I only thought you missed one thing, I would have put that thing first and the parenthetical immediately afterwards. If you had bothered to name the ability you were referencing and made the exact same post, I only would have complained about the duration. That comment is 100% because you were arguing in a way that intentionally made it easy for people to come away with an overly favorable evaluation of the class.

Ring of Blinking is a 16th level item.

Ring of Blinking is a 27,000 GP item which you can buy before 10th level on normal WBL.

Reliably lifting an item as a free action with Sleight of Hand requires a DC 30 check with a -20 penalty and is subject to DM discretion.

Drawing a hidden object is a opposed check in which failure results in detection. You presumably don't care if someone notices you drawing acid flasks, because you're about to throw them anyway, and they'll sure as hell notice that.

Which core items bypass sneak attack immunity?

You'll note I didn't say everything was core. Complete Adventure + Core is less splats than Magic of Incarnum + Core + Web Enhancement.

jindra34

2018-09-17, 04:42 PM

You're not nearly as flexible as a Wizard is, and your options are really, really weak. The Incarnate requires substantially more skill in choosing the correct options than does a Wizard. Just grabbing a BFC effect in your top spell level is enough to make a functional Wizard in combat. The same is not true for the Incarnate. You have to be much better at evaluating likely challenges to produce an effective character as an Incarnate, and you have a much smaller ability to hedge your bets, and you don't have the Wizard's divination suite.

Did I compare the Incarnate to a wizard? No. What I did say is that an Incarnate compares with many established/baseline tier 4 classes in the same way a Wizard compares to a sorcerer. And am asking if that in and of itself warrants moving it up in tier Now quit being a dolt and start thinking past a first grader.

Cosi

2018-09-17, 05:06 PM

Did I compare the Incarnate to a wizard? No. What I did say is that an Incarnate compares with many established/baseline tier 4 classes in the same way a Wizard compares to a sorcerer.

Do you not see how that's a comparison of the Incarnate to the Wizard? You're saying they have analogous levels of versatility. I think they clearly don't, because the Incarnate is lacking in relative competence. Forget Rogues and Reserve Feats. A Tier Four straight-up combat specialist like an Ubercharger is dealing way more damage than a combat-specced Incarnate can dream of. That means the Incarnate can't just rely on speccing for combat one day and skills the next. It has to hit a much tighter target than that because it's worse than the specialists. The Wizard isn't worse at any particular specialty than the Sorcerer.

Rijan_Sai

2018-09-17, 05:52 PM

You'll note I didn't say everything was core. Complete Adventure + Core is less splats than Magic of Incarnum + Core + Web Enhancement.
While I'm not going to get into this debate, I am required by my OCD to point out this:

You know, as apposed to the Rogue, which relies on core items and a core feat.
So, you may not have said it, but this pretty heavily implies it...

And if you buy a Ring of Blinking, you get Sneak Attack every round. Beating the things that "counter" Rogue is a matter of buying a couple of useful magic items. Even ignoring that, only getting Sneak Attack half the time is still more damage in the first round than the Incarnate does in most entire fights.
And I believe Troacctid was asking what items, in Core, you can buy that beat the Rogue's "counters." (Wands sure, but then you need non-core spells; the various weapon crystals are in Magic Item Compendium, and the various feats are spread throughout various splats.)

remetagross

2018-09-17, 06:09 PM

@Cosi about the Ring of Blinking, isn't there that guideline that no PC should own any single item worth more than a quarter of his WBL? Hence the fact that this is not a 10th level item. I would say that having a DM that hands out 27k gp in cash or in sellable items at level 10 seems far less likely that at level 16.

Besides, while items exist to allow the Rogue to keep getting SAs, items also exist to prevent the Rogue from making them, some as simple as a Fortification Armor.

On the matter of Sleight of Hand, I seem to understand that the matter at hand (haha, got it?) is not whether the opponent will notice you drawing the flask, but whether this can be done as a free action, and I believe Troacctid's comment on the difficulty of the required check was relative to that last use of the skill.

Cosi

2018-09-17, 06:17 PM

While I'm not going to get into this debate, I am required by my OCD to point out this:

So, you may not have said it, but this pretty heavily implies it...

And I believe Troacctid was asking what items, in Core, you can buy that beat the Rogue's "counters." (Wands sure, but then you need non-core spells; the various weapon crystals are in Magic Item Compendium, and the various feats are spread throughout various splats.)

The anti-sneak attack immunity wands aren't needed for a Rogue, and Troacctid was talking what was needed, and all the Rogue needs are flasks and a Ring of Blinking. There's this notion on this forum that if anything beats your trick, your trick is irrelevant, but that's simply not true. The Rogue does more than enough damage against non-immune enemies to compensate for sometimes underperforming, and it has UMD anyway.

I'll admit that post wasn't perfectly clear, and I should have been more careful, but ultimately I think emphasizing nitpicking like this over substantive arguments about relative capability makes the people doing it look like they don't have strong arguments.

Cosi

2018-09-17, 06:21 PM

@Cosi about the Ring of Blinking, isn't there that guideline that no PC should own any single item worth more than a quarter of his WBL?

Starting characters. Once the game starts, money buys.

Besides, while items exist to allow the Rogue to keep getting SAs, items also exist to prevent the Rogue from making them, some as simple as a Fortification Armor.

I would love to have every single enemy drop armor with a +5 bonus. That would easily cover the cost of buying and UMDing enough scrolls to win every encounter.

On the matter of Sleight of Hand, I seem to understand that the matter at hand (haha, got it?) is not whether the opponent will notice you drawing the flask, but whether this can be done as a free action, and I believe Troacctid's comment on the difficulty of the required check was relative to that last use of the skill.

Doing it as a free action is a penalty to your check. You're using the check to "hide a small object", which has no DC. You can't fall to put the object on your body or retrieve it, just to do so secretly.

remetagross

2018-09-18, 12:09 AM

Starting characters. Once the game starts, money buys.

Hmm that can fly with some DMs, but not with all. The guideline I mentioned is actually in the DMG, by the way. But it does not necessarily restricts itself to starting gear only, meaning some DMs will balk at letting a PC blow more than half his WBL on a single item, even if this WBL has been duly acquired by the PC (as would be the case of a 27k gp ring for a 10th level PC whose WBL is 49k gp)

I would love to have every single enemy drop armor with a +5 bonus. That would easily cover the cost of buying and UMDing enough scrolls to win every encounter.

Well actually an armor of Moderate Fortification costs around 16k gp and already provides with a 75% chance to ignore all precision damage, meaning the selling price once you pry it from your ennemy is 8k gp. But that amount then has to be split among the party members, which means that in a typical 4-member-party, the Rogue will receive 2k gp for that particular armor. Sweet, but saying that that would easily cover the cost of winning every encounter through scrolls seems rather a stretch.

Doing it as a free action is a penalty to your check. You're using the check to "hide a small object", which has no DC. You can't fall to put the object on your body or retrieve it, just to do so secretly.
After closely reading the description of the skill again, it does appear to work that way, much to my surprise. Though this means anyone can make an untrained Sleight of Hands check with a -20 bonus to perform it as a free action (since drawing a hidden weapon is exclusively an opposed check, and thus not within the realm of "checks with a DC higher than 10" that can only be performed by trained PCs) and draw a hidden weapon. Quick Draw for everyone. That seems ridiculous, to say the least.

However @Troactidd what is the source for that DC 30 you mentioned? Such a use of the skill having a set DC in a splatbook somewhere makes more sense for the skill.

Aegis013

2018-09-18, 12:33 AM

My experience with Incarnate would place it in T4. I really like the class, but I do think it suffers from low floor, low ceiling, high skill demand. Complexities of tailoring feats to potentially fit multiple load-outs, managing magic item slot lock-out and how to best use your WBL without either wasting that or turning off your features, really hurt the class' average capability, in my opinion.

I'd put Totemist on par with just about any ToB class, so T3.

Soulborn T5, too little, too late on the incarnum to be really good at combat.

OgresAreCute

2018-09-18, 01:44 AM

Suppose I'll throw in my votes too.

Totemist: 3

Incarnate: 4

Soulborn: 5

Lans

2018-09-18, 02:46 AM

.

Hahahaha. It's a +1 bonus. It'll take a double digit number of rolls for that to be statistically significantly different from zero. And you have to activate it. If it was permanent and it automatically gave the bonus to everything instead of needing you to roll well (hey Nifft: guess what you forgot to mention) and essentia improved the bonus, then I would call this good. As is, no way.
Lucky dice is useful in that it adds to basically everything, and that the incarnate is going to need every boost it can grab to what its trying to do.

The UMD bonus is smaller than actually investing in the skill past low levels, and you don't get UMD as a class skill. If you want to invest cross-class you're investing most of your skill points which is killing the daily respec that is supposed to be so valuable. Honestly, I think this is more valuable to classes like the Rogue who can pick it up as a better version of Skill Focus.

If an incanate can grab able learner it can be a decent skill monkey, but that only gets it about as good as an expert.
Which is why I think the rogue is higher tier than the incanate and probably should be where the warblade is.

So if im scoring these classes Id go
Soulborn tier 5
Incarnate 3.75
Totemist 3

Cosi

2018-09-18, 06:59 AM

Hmm that can fly with some DMs, but not with all. The guideline I mentioned is actually in the DMG, by the way. But it does not necessarily restricts itself to starting gear only, meaning some DMs will balk at letting a PC blow more than half his WBL on a single item, even if this WBL has been duly acquired by the PC (as would be the case of a 27k gp ring for a 10th level PC whose WBL is 49k gp)

Sure, and some DMs would roll random treasure and end up with PCs flush enough to buy better items, and some DMs would allow other tools that give consistent sneak attack. Also, if we are following that restriction it becomes a lot harder to just give everyone Fortification armor because of how restrictive NPC wealth is.

Well actually an armor of Moderate Fortification costs around 16k gp and already provides with a 75% chance to ignore all precision damage, meaning the selling price once you pry it from your ennemy is 8k gp. But that amount then has to be split among the party members, which means that in a typical 4-member-party, the Rogue will receive 2k gp for that particular armor. Sweet, but saying that that would easily cover the cost of winning every encounter through scrolls seems rather a stretch.

Well, that's either 16k less GP they have for other stuff (in which case the Rogue is providing an implicit debuff just for existing), or it's extra added on top, in which case I think it would be reasonable to give the Rogue a larger share. But even if it's just 2k GP, that's enough to alternate between 6th and 7th level scrolls. UMD takes relatively little investment, and popping out acid fog or finger of death before the Wizard does is pretty good.

Quick Draw for everyone. That seems ridiculous, to say the least.

Not really. Quick Draw is kind of a crap feat. It's probably healthier that everyone gets it than that some people have to spend one of their feat slots on it.

Lucky dice is useful in that it adds to basically everything, and that the incarnate is going to need every boost it can grab to what its trying to do.

I mean sure, but if you're that desperate for a +1, it doesn't reflect well on the class.

If an incanate can grab able learner it can be a decent skill monkey, but that only gets it about as good as an expert.

Able Learner doesn't give you any more skill points though. It lets you buy cross-class more efficiently, but the class only gets 2 + INT skills. And you're probably not investing much in INT. Or if you are you're investing less in STR and the comparison to other melee classes falter.

Which is why I think the rogue is higher tier than the incanate and probably should be where the warblade is.

I very much agree with that.

Lans

2018-09-18, 11:36 AM

I mean sure, but if you're that desperate for a +1, it doesn't reflect well on the class.
This is a class that is incredibly deficient in doing thing, so yeah.

Able Learner doesn't give you any more skill points though. It lets you buy cross-class more efficiently, but the class only gets 2 + INT skills. And you're probably not investing much in INT. Or if you are you're investing less in STR and the comparison to other melee classes falter.
It lets the class get 5 skills where they should be, and another 5 if it has a 14 intelligence or maybe 12 with being a human. So it could sacrifice a point off the attack, it may not, as warblades and fighters tend to have 14 intelligence a fair amount of the time due to improved trip and the warblade class skills.

I very much agree with that.
did you ever give the incarnate a score?

Luccan

2018-09-18, 01:09 PM

So, its tier obviously isn't changing in this thread, but are Cosi and Lans arguing Rogues should be in Tier 3? Because that seems like a stretch. And if not, are you arguing Incarnate should be in Tier 5?

Cosi

2018-09-18, 01:31 PM

It lets the class get 5 skills where they should be, and another 5 if it has a 14 intelligence or maybe 12 with being a human. So it could sacrifice a point off the attack, it may not, as warblades and fighters tend to have 14 intelligence a fair amount of the time due to improved trip and the warblade class skills.

Shouldn't it be 4 skills, not 5? Able Learner's effect is basically to double your skill points if you invest in cross-class skills. It's pretty good for an Incarnate, because it means that between skill boosting soulmelds and actual ranks you're now slightly ahead of rather than slightly behind an equal-level skill money just putting in ranks (that is, when you shape + invest).

did you ever give the incarnate a score?

I don't disagree with the rankings Heavyfuel intuited on the first page. Maybe if we're doing fractional rankings the Incarnate should be like a 4.5, but honestly I've never really cared about the numbers and always viewed the discussion as more useful.

So, its tier obviously isn't changing in this thread, but are Cosi and Lans arguing Rogues should be in Tier 3? Because that seems like a stretch. And if not, are you arguing Incarnate should be in Tier 5?

Probably, though maybe not depending on how exactly you understand the definition and requirements for Tier Three. My personal view is that between the devastating effectiveness of TWF sneak attack and a skill list that includes basically all the skills you want, the Rogue is definitely on the same level as the Warlock. Overall, I think the tiers have too much granularity and I would basically have four rankings if I did things by pure power: Basically A Wizard (full casters except Healer and Warmage, Artificer), Clearly Worse Than a Wizard But Potentially Useful (Rogues, ToB Classes, Warmages, Healers, basically Tier Three and some of the classes that are in Tier Four for being combat specialists), Still Technically a PC Class (Incarnates, Shadowcasters, Rangers), and Basically a NPC Class (NPC classes, Truenamers, Monks, maybe Fighters). But really I wouldn't do power rankings at all because they're dumb. You should pick a fixed power level and evaluate other things around that power level, like optimization effort.

GrayDeath

2018-09-18, 01:46 PM

Totemnist is a low flexibility, High Power T3 (I`d say closest Analogue is the Warblade that is built with a clear focus), so I`d give it a 3.3.

Soulborn....sigh. I adored the Fluff, but the Class? Horrible. Weak T5, so T 5.3ish.

Incarnate....uff. Much more difficult. I see very little power but good to great flexibility. Depending on how you rate that its either a "Novice of all, master of none" T4 or "Good allrounder without clear Focus" T3.
I`ll go with T 3.9 for now.

Troacctid

2018-09-18, 04:13 PM

It's kind of interesting to me the differential I'm seeing in people's rankings of Totemist vs. Incarnate. I think they're actually very close, with Totemist pulling a liiittle bit ahead because of its improved chassis. But apparently a lot of you see the gap as being much wider.

Lans

2018-09-19, 01:37 AM

Shouldn't it be 4 skills, not 5? Able Learner's effect is basically to double your skill points if you invest in cross-class skills. It's pretty good for an Incarnate, because it means that between skill boosting soulmelds and actual ranks you're now slightly ahead of rather than slightly behind an equal-level skill money just putting in ranks (that is, when you shape + invest).You can get a 15/17 bonus from soulmelds so from there you need 8 or 6 ranks, so for each skill point the incarnate gets you can get 2 or 3 skills to essentially full ranks.

I don't disagree with the rankings Heavyfuel intuited on the first page. Maybe if we're doing fractional rankings the Incarnate should be like a 4.5, but honestly I've never really cared about the numbers and always viewed the discussion as more useful.

Cool

And if you buy a Ring of Blinking, you get Sneak Attack every round. Beating the things that "counter" Rogue is a matter of buying a couple of useful magic items. Even ignoring that, only getting Sneak Attack half the time is still more damage in the first round than the Incarnate does in most entire fights.
.

I do you get around deeper darkness?

Totemnist is a low flexibility, High Power T3 (I`d say closest Analogue is the Warblade that is built with a clear focus), so I`d give it a 3.3. How do the noncombat options of the totemist compare to the warblade?

Troacctid

2018-09-19, 02:03 AM

How do the noncombat options of the totemist compare to the warblade?
Flight, teleportation, speak with animals/wild empathy, detect magic/psionics, detect evil, telepathy, Track, scent, mass levitation, etherealness, feather fall, a bunch of different skill boosts...I think that's it. But that's some pretty nice stuff, especially since it's all at will. Better than what the Warblade gets for sure.

Kelb_Panthera

2018-09-19, 04:38 AM

Flight, teleportation, speak with animals/wild empathy, detect magic/psionics, detect evil, telepathy, Track, scent, mass levitation, etherealness, feather fall, a bunch of different skill boosts...I think that's it. But that's some pretty nice stuff, especially since it's all at will. Better than what the Warblade gets for sure.

All that said, what out of combat options does a warblade even have? There's the Hunter's Stance for scent and...?

OgresAreCute

2018-09-19, 04:53 AM

All that said, what out of combat options does a warblade even have? There's the Hunter's Stance for scent and...?

4 skill points per level and INT as a tertiary stat?

noce

2018-09-19, 05:37 AM

All that said, what out of combat options does a warblade even have? There's the Hunter's Stance for scent and...?

Arguably, being able to jump with no running start is useful out of combat.
The scent stance is another one.
The ability to bypass hardness can be very useful, I'd pick it just for out of combat utility indeed.

Kelb_Panthera

2018-09-19, 05:51 AM

The ability to bypass hardness can be very useful, I'd pick it just for out of combat utility indeed.

I've never been impressed with that particular point. You can get 90% of the same effect for 60gp (adamantine arrow). It's great for getting past weird damage reductions though.

remetagross

2018-09-19, 05:54 AM

I've never been impressed with that particular point. You can get 90% of the same effect for 60gp (adamantine arrow). It's great for getting past weird damage reductions though.

But it can be initiated unarmed. I recently had my shackled and disarmed Crusader shatter his handcuffs by attacking them with his armor spikes.

@Cosi for our discussion about Rogues:

-While Rings of Blinking cost 27k gp, potions of Living Undeath cost 250gp, maiking them affordable for NPCs starting from level 1, way before Rings of Blinking do. Besides, those rings require the user to spend a standard action to activate, thus preventing him from attacking on the first round of battle. Then, they impart a 20% miss chance on the user's own attacks. Finally, the effect lasts 7 rounds, upon which the user has to spend another standard action to reactivate it.

-On the matter of the money taken off of the NPC's WBL to protect them from the Rogue, well, for one once the Spell Compendium is allowed you have these 250gp potions of Living Undeath, and if not but the MiC is in, there are the 8k gp Talismans of Undying Fortitude. So I think the hit taken by NPC's WBL is actually fairly acceptable. I will agree that still, it amounts to a passive contribution the Rogue is making even before the fight has begun. But on the other hand, the same can be said of the potion of Protection from Energy: Acid or Scintillating Scales bought to counter Dissolving Spittle.
On the matter of the Rogue using the extra gp to buy scrolls ahead of what the party wizard can cast, well, the wizard can use his own share of those extra gp to buy said scrolls just as well, and then use them with no skill point investment or risk to roll a 1 on the UMD check. Hence, I do not believe it is a good point.

-On the matter of Quick Draw, well, it is the way it is. In my gaming experience, no DM has ever allowed free Quick Draw for anyone, and no DM would have let the Sleight of Hand trick fly either. I thus intent to believe that that is the case in the majority of the games people play, however risky that assertion might be.

All in all, my point is that it is not that easy for Rogues to achieve SA conditions each and every round of a fight, be it because the ennemy is immune (there are no ways to bypass Elemental and Ooze immunites, for one) or because the rogue cannot deny him his Dex to AC, of whatnot.
Now, that being said, I will readily agree that a Rogue that pulls off maybe two or three full attacks of two-weapon-fighting sneak attacks in a single fight might already ahead of what an Incarnate can do over the course of the entire fight. Simply, I think the gap is closer than what you seem to indicate.

That being with the goal of assessing the Incarnate tier by comparison with what the Rogue tier is.

Troacctid

2018-09-19, 11:42 AM

All that said, what out of combat options does a warblade even have? There's the Hunter's Stance for scent and...?
Yeah, exactly.

Andor13

2018-09-19, 12:32 PM

Flight, teleportation, speak with animals/wild empathy, detect magic/psionics, detect evil, telepathy, Track, scent, mass levitation, etherealness, feather fall, a bunch of different skill boosts...I think that's it. But that's some pretty nice stuff, especially since it's all at will. Better than what the Warblade gets for sure.

Suppress a magic item, by licking it. ... That may not count as an out-of-combat ability for long.

Piggy Knowles

2018-09-19, 12:35 PM

I've never been impressed with that particular point. You can get 90% of the same effect for 60gp (adamantine arrow). It's great for getting past weird damage reductions though.

An adamantine arrow is not going to be particularly effective at destroying things. Not only is there a question of whether it can be used at all (assuming your DM doesn’t treat it as a ranged weapon, it may still fall under the ill-defined “ineffective weapons” section, and most piercing weapons can’t be used to break items), the low damage you’ll accept by using it over another weapon will end up mitigating a good chunk of the benefit you’d get for it being adamantine. You’re way better off purchasing something at least one-handed that does bludgeoning and/or slashing damage despite the increased cost.

Even then, adamantine has a number of limitations that mountain hammer does not: it is ineffective against anything made of adamantine or similarly hard materials, can’t break most magically treated metals, and struggles against some magic items. And unless your primary weapon is adamantine, likely it’ll be doing significantly less damage than your main goblin-smasher would do. But the real draw is exactly what you mentioned: it’s already a worthwhile maneuver to have in your back pocket for its ability to bypass any random DR you come across, so the fact that it can be used out of combat as a much improved version of an adamantine weapon is just a great bonus.

I agree that it doesn’t magically make warblades great out of combat, though.